Canva is launching its latest smorgasbord of generative AI-powered workspace tools in its attempt to cram everything that Microsoft, Google, and Adobe can do into a single platform. Canva’s Visual Suite is being redesigned to combine its design and productivity tools into a single interface, alongside adding new coding, photo editing, spreadsheet, and AI chatbot features.
Canva has added a bunch of new AI features to its web-based design platform, including updates for generating text and video effects and a more powerful text-to-image app. The latter is called “Dream Lab” — a new image generator tool born from Canva’s acquisition of generative AI startup Leonardo.ai earlier this year.
The company has established itself as a simpler, more affordable alternative to legacy design software, but the “more affordable” part of the equation is becoming a little less true, with some Canva Teams subscribers seeing their pricing go from $120 per year to $500 per year — an increase of 300%.
Web-based design platform Canva has acquired the Affinity creative software suite, positioning itself as a challenger to Adobe’s grip over the digital design industry. Canva announced the deal on Tuesday, which gives the company ownership over Affinity Designer, Photo, and Publisher — three popular creative applications for Windows, Mac, and iPad that provide similar features to Adobe’s Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign software, respectively.
Canva is releasing Magic Studio — a new suite of AI-powered design tools that aim to make content creation more accessible to everyone, regardless of previous design experience. Canva describes Magic Studio as “the world’s most comprehensive AI-design platform” for organizations and individual users, providing a host of new tools for automating labor-intensive tasks like converting designs into other media formats or instantly editing images through generative AI.
“With Kittl we allow users to create professional-grade designs fast and easily by removing the barrier of a tough learning curve. Our features are designed to make complex design processes simple and accessible with a few clicks. Our competitors either focus on basic tools that only allow a small range of creative freedom, or they take a lot of training and practice to get good at.”
Canva’s text-to-image tool is the latest example of the technology hitting mainstream apps. Image: Canva
The feature is only the latest example of text-to-image AI tools reaching ever larger audiences. The launch of Stable Diffusion in particular has accelerated access to these systems, as its open-source implementation allows companies to integrate it into their own products for free. Text-to-image is quickly becoming a staple in creative platforms, and just last month, Microsoft launched its own text-to-image tool, Microsoft Designer, (powered by OpenAI’s DALL-E system) as part of its Office suite.
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