Canva expands capabilities with new AI features and tools

Canva, the online design platform, has announced a significant expansion of its capabilities, unveiling a series of new products and features designed to revolutionise how users create and collaborate on visual content. This development coincides with the company achieving a major growth milestone, boasting 200 million monthly active users—an increase of over 115 million in the past two years—and reaching an annualised revenue of $2.5 billion.

Among the new offerings is Canva’s integration of generative artificial intelligence (AI) technology from Leonardo.ai. This collaboration introduces Dream Lab, a state-of-the-art generative AI tool capable of transforming textual descriptions into images and graphics across various styles, including 3D renders and illustrations. Dream Lab allows users to generate multiple variations from a single idea and utilise existing images as style references for more accurate outputs. This tool aims to facilitate the creation of complex images and photorealistic portraits, enhancing the creative process for users worldwide.

This wave of innovations comes shortly after the introduction of Canva Enterprise, a tool adopted by significant industry players such as the New York Stock Exchange, Atlassian, and DHL Express. These companies utilise the platform to streamline content creation and uphold brand consistency. Canva’s offerings have resulted in its platform achieving remarkable usage statistics, with users from over 190 countries crafting more than 2.5 billion presentations and 500 million documents, a testament to the platform’s global reach and appeal.

Melanie Perkins, Canva’s Co-Founder and CEO, expressed enthusiasm over the company’s growth, noting that Canva serves a wide range of users, from Fortune 500 companies to small businesses, classrooms, and nonprofits. Perkins highlighted that this is just the beginning of Canva’s mission to empower everyone to transform their ideas into reality through design.

Canva’s Visual Suite, encompassing Docs, Whiteboards, Websites, Presentations, and Videos, plays a crucial role in these enhancements. Since its launch, the suite has become a core component of Canva’s offerings, with users creating 2.5 billion presentations, 1.5 billion videos, and 240 million whiteboards. These tools consolidate design capabilities and improve workplace collaboration by providing a seamless platform tailored to diverse professional needs.

Newly introduced features within the Canva platform include AI-powered enhancements in Magic Write, offering contextual text generation and easy refinement of generated text. Video capabilities have become more effortless with advanced animation effects and auto-generated captions, while presentations have gained interactivity through new chart types and animation effects. Furthermore, users can take advantage of data storytelling with new chart forms, such as Area and Hierarchy Charts, and convert photos into professional mockup templates.

Canva’s content offering has seen substantial growth, with the integration of assets from Artlist and pocstock, enhancing music, video, and stock photography resources available to users. Artlist provides a premium video library, while pocstock introduces a diverse collection of over 150,000 photographs, fostering more inclusive visual content creation.

Additionally, Canva has expanded its Work Kits, initially released in May, to include tailored resources for small businesses, educators, and students. These kits comprise playbooks, templates, and organisational tools designed to address specific audience needs, from business management to educational challenges and student projects.

As Canva continues to innovate, the company remains committed to its vision of providing intuitive design and collaboration software that meets the diverse needs of professionals worldwide, revolutionising the digital design landscape.

Source: Noah Wire Services