Canva unveils AI-driven Magic Studio & revamped UI at event

Canva, the comprehensive visual communication platform, has unveiled significant upgrades to its product suite, incorporating artificial intelligence (AI) innovations, during its highly anticipated Canva Create event. Held in Los Angeles—its first international location, the event showcased Canva’s ambitious plans to revolutionise workplace processes across various business departments, from Human Resources to Finance.

Boasting over 175 million monthly users and generating more than USD $2 billion in annual revenue, Canva’s recent product updates are set to redefine its operational landscape. Central to these updates is Magic Studio, which has already seen over 5 billion uses and is now receiving a substantial overhaul.

The latest enhancements to Magic Studio introduce several advanced features aimed at improving user experience and output quality. One of the standout additions is Magic Media. This text-to-graphic tool generates graphics, icons, and illustrations directly from text prompts, making the creative process more intuitive and efficient. Additionally, Magic Design has been upgraded with improved AI design technology, enabling the production of higher-quality presentations that meet professional standards.

Magic Write now boasts enhanced capabilities, allowing it to better comprehend and replicate brand and individual tones of voice, ensuring consistency in communication. Furthermore, the new Styles & Layouts feature allows users to apply brand colours and templates across entire designs with a single click, streamlining the design process and effortlessly maintaining brand coherence.

Moreover, Canva has unveiled a newly revamped user interface (UI) designed specifically for work applications. This redesign marks the first significant change to Canva’s core product experience in a decade. The new UI boasts several key features designed to enhance user experience and functionality. One of the primary improvements is the streamlined editing experience, featuring a new contextual editing toolbar that improves focus and increases workspace. It showcases popular tools like the one-click background remover and Magic Studio AI tools.

The UI now includes customisable homepages, allowing users to personalise their workspaces by favouriting designs, folders, and templates. Organisations can also pin essential content to the top of the page, ensuring quick access to important resources, all supported by a powerful search interface.

One of Canva’s strategic moves includes integrating Affinity following its recent acquisition. This acquisition enables Canva to offer a comprehensive solution catering to professional graphic designers, illustrators, and typographers. Enhancements to Affinity include support for variable fonts, a Stroke Width Tool, and compatibility with ARM64 chips.

Canva has introduced a new subscription service, Canva Enterprise, to meet the growing demands of large organisations. This service aims to facilitate the creation of extensive visual content and streamline internal collaboration while offering advanced administrative controls and robust security measures. It includes IP, cost, and app consolidation, combining design, AI, and collaboration tools into a centralised account to enhance efficiency while reducing costs.

Advanced brand controls are provided to ensure brand consistency and manage access to Canva’s extensive library of elements and templates. To protect valuable assets, Canva Enterprise implements enterprise-level security measures, including multi-factor authentication (MFA), a System for Cross-domain Identity Management (SCIM), single sign-on (SSO), and the comprehensive Canva Shield security framework.

Recognising the growing need for design skills among non-design roles, Canva has also launched several tailored tools and resources for various departments, including Marketing, HR, Sales, and Creative. These resources are part of Canva Work Kits, comprising industry-curated templates. Additionally, Canva Courses have been introduced to support workplace learning and employee development by transforming existing designs into interactive courses.

Rebecca Janes, a Creative Designer at FedEx, praised Canva’s user-friendly interface and extensive template selection, noting that it significantly enhances the quality and efficiency of their visual communications.