Canva introduces recent digital marketing and video editing tools built around the company calls “world’s first” design-centric AI model. These launches are part of a modernization of product design platforms for Visual Suite, which Canva describes as a “creative operating system” for marketing teams.
To be clear, this is not an operating system in the classic sense. Canva uses the term as a collective reference to various task-specific tools, the artificial intelligence that powers them, and the broader platform interface. “We thought of a few different phrases and the OS really spoke to us. It’s a real OS,” said Canva co-founder Cameron Adams Edge. “It goes beyond just the application layer and really enables the entire creative process and workflows.”
With that confusion out of the way, here are some changes that users will actually notice. Canva has redesigned its video editor to make it easier to employ even for those without experienced editing skills, adding a recent library of templates and a simplified timeline for trimming, syncing, and layering footage. Also added is Forms, a feedback tool similar to Google Forms that allows users to bring data directly into Canva and automatically import it into Canva Sheets.
The company is making extensive employ of marketing tools with the launch of its recent Canva Grow marketing platform, which allows marketers to design and run ads and track their performance using artificial intelligence that “learns from performance data to make each campaign smarter and more effective over time.” The recent Email Design product enables marketing teams to create and export branded email campaigns without having to code or switch to dedicated email marketing platforms like Mailchimp.
All of these features are powered by a recent internal AI model that has been specially trained “to understand design complexity,” Canva says. The company says enhanced AI solutions – most of which are available via premium subscription – are now deeply embedded in every part of the platform design process.
Canva has come a long way from an online graphic design platform. While its roots certainly lie in providing marketers with uncomplicated artistic tools, most of its products now focus on providing alternatives to Google or Microsoft apps for the workplace. And because this experience is offered as a completely unified service, paying users have no opportunity to be selective about the products they actually employ. I asked Adams whether Canva was considering such a system, given the backlash over using AI to justify subscription price increases, but he said the company had no current plans to do so.