SYDNEY, Australia — The race to develop AI-powered tools is heating up across industries, and design platform Canva is shaking up the competition a little bit more, positioning itself further as the go-to creative platform.
Ushering in the so-called “new era” of visual communication, Canva, last March 23, integrated into its "all-in-one" platform a range of AI-powered design tools focused on making the often-tedious design ideation and creation process simpler for everyone.
“We handle the things that we know are painful, mundane and repetitive, and we just take you out of this to get your idea done really quickly and have as little friction between those two points,” Canva co-founder Melanie Perkins told members of the media ahead of the Canva Create event.
With its new tools, Canva harnesses the power of Generative AI models such as ChatGPT and image generator Stable Diffusion to offer its 125 million users new capabilities for designing, content writing, animation and video editing.
Generative AI, simply put, is a type of artificial intelligence that enables machines to create new content based on the content humans have already created. This is made possible through exposure to massive amounts of data, which AI analyzes to identify patterns, trends and features that it will eventually use to generate new outputs.
However, the increasing use of AI in the creative process is not without its controversies. Currently, a number of artists are waging battle online and in court defending their art from image-generating AI models, like Stable Diffusion, that train from their works without consent.
Some critics also argue that AI-powered tools may diminish the role of human creativity, leading to a world where all designs look the same, to which Canva clarifies that its tools are intended to help humans create the ideas they have in mind and "get out a first draft, fast."
The race for AI supremacy
Canva's move to incorporate generative AI is part of a larger trend in the industry as different companies scramble to integrate AI capabilities in their office and design tools.
Just a day ahead of Canva Create, Adobe introduced Firefly, which also features several generative AI tools.
Likewise, Microsoft has recently previewed new AI tools they’re bringing into its 365 apps—Word, Excel Powerpoint, among others—on the same week Google has teased through a blog its plans to integrate AI in its Workspace apps.