canva launches its own design model, adds new ai features to the platform

Canva Introduces New Design Model and AI Updates

Canva, a prominent creative suite provider, has announced the launch of its proprietary design model. This new model is specifically designed to comprehend design layers and formats, thereby enhancing the functionality of its features.

Alongside the model, the company unveiled a suite of new products and features. These include significant updates to its AI assistant and a novel capability to integrate its spreadsheet tool with its app-building functionality for the creation of data visualization widgets.

Foundational Model for Editable Designs

Canva is introducing a foundational model, uniquely trained on its extensive library of design elements. This model generates designs comprised of editable layers and individual objects, moving beyond the limitations of flat image generation.

The model’s versatility extends across a wide range of formats, encompassing social media posts, presentations, digital whiteboards, and complete websites.

Addressing the Challenges of Prompt-Based Design

“Initially, we focused on generating flat images using diffusion models,” explained Robert Kawalsky, Canva’s global head of product, in a conversation with TechCrunch. “Omni models represented an advancement, enabling sophisticated editing of these flat images through prompting.”

Kawalsky continued, “However, achieving the desired final result often required extensive prompting, which can be particularly challenging in a visual context.”

The company recognized a demand for a solution that allows users to begin with a prompt, achieve substantial progress, and then directly refine the design themselves.

Enhanced AI Assistant Capabilities

Earlier this year, Canva launched Canva AI, an AI assistant featuring a chat-like interface for generating visual content from textual prompts.

The platform is now expanding the availability of this assistant throughout its interface, integrating it into both the design and elements tabs.

Users can now utilize @mentions to tag the bot within comments, receiving suggestions for text or media while collaborating on projects. Furthermore, the AI tool can now generate 3D objects and replicate the artistic style of existing designs.

Integration of Spreadsheet and App-Building Tools

Canva has recently added a spreadsheet product and a feature enabling users to create mini applications through prompts.

These two products are now being interconnected, allowing users to leverage data stored within the spreadsheet to construct dynamic widgets.

Introducing Canva Grow: An All-in-One Marketing Platform

Following the acquisition of ad analytics firm MagicBrief, Canva is launching Canva Grow. This platform provides a comprehensive marketing solution, utilizing AI for both asset creation and performance analysis.

Canva Grow also facilitates direct ad publishing to platforms such as Meta.

New Products and Features

Beyond AI enhancements, the Australian design company announced several new additions to its platform.

Users can now create forms within Canva to gather responses from clients or audiences, offering an alternative to services like Google Forms.

Email design capabilities have also been added, allowing users to craft templates and layouts for marketing or transactional emails that align with their brand’s visual identity.

Affinity Integration and Free Access

Last year, Canva acquired the professional design suite Affinity to strengthen its competitive position against Adobe.

With this release, Affinity is being made available to users free of charge.

Canva is also redesigning the Affinity interface to consolidate vector, pixel, and layout tools into a unified environment.

The integration between Affinity and Canva is being deepened, enabling designers to create objects within the professional tool and seamlessly transfer them into Canva. Users can also leverage Canva AI to generate images or designs directly within Affinity.