Like many companies in 2024, Canva has announced new products and features that involve AI. Canva mentioned that this set of new features coincide with reaching 200 million monthly users each month with a 2.5 billion USD in annualized revenue.
Before diving into the details, let’s highlight that Canva says that the Philippines is one of its fastest growing markets globally. Even without specific numbers, I can attest to this, as I know many people who prefer Canva over its competitors. Price is usually the driving factor.
Recently, Canva has partnered with the Department of Education (DepEd) to roll out Canva for Education in classrooms nationwide by 2025. Canva Philippines has student engagement programs and training for DepEd staff, teachers, and students.
You can try out Canva yourself, as there is a free tier available. Plus, there are plenty of YouTube tutorials online. Learning new things has really gotten easier these days.
Canva has also partnered with GCash. This leads to training of local businesses in 37 cities through the DigiCities Program. Here, Canva highlighted how Canva is a tool for marketing, branding, and collaboration. I assume, you can use GCash to pay for your Canva subscription.
Now, moving on to the new AI products. In September, it was reported that Canva will be increasing its monthly subscription next year, though it’s not certain how this will affect local pricings.
In any case, the new AI features come from Leonardo.ai, which Canva has acquired. This acquisition leads to the launch of Dream Lab, which Canva says will “unlock new levels of creativity, design precision, and efficiency in their work.”
| “We’re incredibly excited to now be empowering more than 200 million people in nearly every country across the globe. From over 95% of the Fortune 500 to millions of small businesses, classrooms and nonprofits, it’s certainly an exciting milestone but we feel we’re still just 1% of the way there,” said Melanie Perkins, Canva’s co-founder and CEO. “As we double down on empowering everyone to turn their ideas into designs, we’re introducing dozens of new features across our Visual Suite at the intersection of creativity and productivity. From more interactive designs to a suite of AI-powered upgrades, we hope these new features help our community to continue achieving their goals.” |
Canva introduces Dream Lab
Dream Lab is a generative AI tool. Type in prompts and you get visual results.
These will include:
- Generate multiple variations in more than 15 different styles including 3D Renders and illustrations
- Use an existing image as a style reference to more precisely influence the output, unlocking possibilities like generating stock photos in your company’s style
- Create complex multi-subject images and photorealistic portraits
Canva claimed its commitment for safe and responsible AI use, ensuring Dream Lab is backed by Canva Shield, the company’s approach to AI trust and safety. Canva claims they will not train their AI models over customers’ artwork.
Canva boasts that the new image generation tools plus over one hundred million content library, users will always have enough room for creativity.
They said, in a press release: “For example, art directors can generate entire storyboards, entrepreneurs can experiment with various product mockups, marketing teams can quickly create on-brand campaign assets, and educators can craft engaging learning materials—all with creative confidence.”
Canva’s Visual Suite
Canva’s Visual Suite includes Docs, Whiteboards, Websites, Presentations, and Videos. These tools have provided new ways for teams to collaborate by putting all features into a single platform. Now, these tools get AI upgrades:
- Smarter Whiteboards: AI-powered sorting and summarizing, along with interactive ‘Reaction Stickies’ to help teammates vote on ideas in real-time.
- More Intuitive Magic Write: New AI functionalities including contextual text generation for more accurate output and one-click commands to refine generated text.
- Effortless Video Capabilities: Advanced animation effects and automatically generated captions that can be matched to brand style to save hours of manual work.
- More Interactive Presentations: New interactive chart types and advanced animation effects to boost engagement. Plus, automatic page numbers added with one click.
- Expanded Data Storytelling: The introduction of new chart types such as Area Charts, Radar Charts, Hierarchy Charts, and Statistical Charts.
- Introducing Custom Mockups: Turn photos into professional, on-brand mockup templates in a click.
- Debuting Polls and quizzes: Create simple, customizable polls and quizzes directly in the editor.
- Powerful Integrations: Access and collaborate on Canva designs directly within Google Workspace via Gmail, Google Drive, Calendar, Docs and more.
Expanded content offering through more world-class assets
On top of the new AI tools, Canva expands its assets library with Artlists and pocstock. This expansion offers new templates, video assets, stock photos, among other things.
- Artlist integration: Through the Artlist Premium Video Library, Canva now offers music and cinematic video assets from top industry artists.
- Enhancing inclusive representation with pocstock: Canva strengthens its commitment to diversity by introducing the pocstock content collection. This partnership gives paid users access to 150,000 photos, empowering them to create content that better reflects an inclusive world.
Teachers, students, and small business owners also get new products. These are:
- Work Kits for small business owners: Generalist Work Kits that include playbooks, customizable templates, organizational resources, and apps to support various aspects of running a business.
- Work Kits for teachers: A wide range of education-focused templates and resources to address key challenges, refresh lesson plans, manage workloads, and encourage creativity based on real-world experiences.
- Work Kits for students: Templates, tips, and tools to enhance homework, organize studies, and elevate their presentations for extracurricular projects.