Creative suite company Canva launched its own design model on Thursday that understands design layers and formats to power its features. The company also introduced new products and features, updates to its AI assistant, and the ability to use its spreadsheet tool alongside its app-building feature to create data visualization widgets.
Canva said that it is launching its own foundational model, trained on its design elements, that generates designs with editable layers and objects rather than flat images. The model works across different formats, including social media posts, presentations, whiteboards, and websites.
“We started by creating flat images with diffusion models. Omni models have taken that a step further, where you’re able to edit those flat images with a lot of sophistication through prompting. But the tools have made you prompt your way to the final result, which, for a visual medium, is challenging,” Canva’s global head of product, Robert Kawalsky, told TechCrunch over a call.
“What we’ve found is that people . . . want the ability to start with a prompt and get far, but also be able to iterate directly themselves.”
Earlier this year, the company unveiled an AI assistant called Canva AI that has a chat-like interface for generating visual content from text prompts. The platform is now making that assistant available throughout the interface, including the design and elements tabs.
Users can also tag (@mention) the bot in comments to get text or media suggestions while working on a project with others. Plus, the AI tool can now generate 3D objects and allows users to copy the art style of any design.
The company also added a spreadsheet product and a feature that lets users create mini apps through prompts. Now it’s connecting these two products, allowing users to use data stored in the spreadsheet and create widgets from that.
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Canva also acquired an ad analytics company called MagicBrief earlier this year. Using its own platform for creation along with the new measurement tool, Canva is launching Canva Grow, an all-in-one marketing platform that uses AI for both asset creation and performance analytics. It also allows marketers to publish their ads directly on platforms like Meta.
Along with AI features, the Australian design company announced several new products and features for its platform. Users can now create forms with Canva to collect responses from their clients or audiences as an alternative to services like Google Forms.
The company is also adding email design to the platform for users to create templates and layouts for marketing or transactional emails that follow their brand’s aesthetics.
Canva acquired the professional design suite Affinity last year to better compete with Adobe. With this release, the company said that it is making Affinity free forever for users.
Canva is also redesigning the Affinity interface to merge vector, pixel, and layout tools under one interface. It’s tightly integrating Affinity with Canva so designers can create objects in the professional tool and move them into Canva. Users can also take advantage of Canva AI to generate images or designs within Affinity, the company said.
