Apps

Canva unveils a series of new features, including several AI-powered tools

Comment

Canva logo on a phone
Image Credits: Mateusz Slodkowski/SOPA Images/LightRocket / Getty Images

Canva is introducing a series of new features, including a suite of AI-powered tools, and a new Brand Hub. The company unveiled the new features and tools during its Canva Create virtual event today.

The company is launching Assistant, which lets users search for design elements and provides quick access to features. The tool can also give you recommendations on graphics and styles that match your existing design. Assistant provides quick access to AI-powered design tools like Magic Write, which is the platform’s AI-powered copywriting assistant that it launched in December.

Canva Magic Write
Image Credits: Canva

As of today, Magic Write will be accessible within all Canva project types, from Presentations to social media graphics, flyers and more. Prior to this expansion, Magic Write was only accessible in Canva Docs.

You can use Magic Write for writing website copy or presentation summaries. For example, you can ask Magic Write to list social media strategy ideas for a new product launch. The tool takes into account the type of project you’re working in when suggesting copy. In addition to the expanded availability, Canva announced that Magic Write is now available in 18 languages.

Canva has also launched a new way to automatically generate presentations. You can prompt the editor to create a range of presentations with an outline and content on each slide. As for design, the company’s new “Magic Design” tool lets users upload an image and then select a style to get a curated selection of personalized templates that you can customize.

We also have a new “Magic Edit” feature that lets you add or replace anything in an image. You can identify where you want to add something and then describe it to Magic Edit. A new “Magic Eraser” feature allows you to clean up unwanted details in images by brushing over the area.

Canva Magic Presentations
Image Credits: Canva

Canva also is launching “Beat Sync,” which automatically matches video footage to a soundtrack of your choice, along with a new a new “Translate” feature that automatically translates text in designs to over 100 different languages.

In addition to the new AI-powered tools, Canva is introducing a set of new features that it says users have requested.

First, the company is launching “Draw,” which lets you sketch a simple shape, like a circle, and then have it transform into a polished circle. A new “Layouts” feature allows users to add content to a page and get recommendations for layout ideas for a design, whereas “Styles” gives users the ability to browse suggested color palettes and fonts.

A new “Layers” tool can be used to see all elements in one place, including text, shapes, images and video.

Canva Layouts
Image Credits: Canva

Canva now supports Alt Text, which means you can provide extra context to your images and elements to describe them for those with visual impairment or accessibility needs. Another new welcome update is the addition of 953 new fonts, including Arial, Courier, Helvetica and Times New Roman.

The company is also launching Brand Hub, a range of new tools and features designed to help teams stay on brand. The hub includes a new “Magic Replace” tool that allows users to quickly update brand assets, such as logos, across your designs on the platform.

In addition, the hub includes tools that help you create brand templates, folders and guidelines. Admins can also approve workflows directly in Canva to ensure that designs are reviewed and approved before they’re published.

Canva brand kit
Image Credits: Canva

“Ten years ago, we launched Canva driven by a vision to empower everyone to design anything, no matter their skills or experience,” said Canva co-founder and CEO Melanie Perkins in a statement. “Today, we’re thrilled to advance that vision by introducing a whole new range of features, focused on empowering brands to scale their creative outputs. As technology continues to advance, we are reimagining the design process by making it even easier to take what is in your head, get it onto a page, and out into the world, faster than ever before.”

Launched in 2013, Canva now touts more than 120 million monthly users, which is 35 million more than it had before the launch of its Visual Worksuite in September 2022. The company says more than 15 billion designs have been created using its platform.

Canva launches a new paid subscription for universities and colleges

Stability AI, Hugging Face and Canva back new AI research nonprofit

More TechCrunch

The AI industry moves faster than the rest of the technology sector, which means it outpaces the federal government by several orders of magnitude.

Senate study proposes ‘at least’ $32B yearly for AI programs

The FBI along with a coalition of international law enforcement agencies seized the notorious cybercrime forum BreachForums on Wednesday.  For years, BreachForums has been a popular English-language forum for hackers…

FBI seizes hacking forum BreachForums — again

The announcement signifies a significant shake-up in the streaming giant’s advertising approach.

Netflix to take on Google and Amazon by building its own ad server

It’s tough to say that a $100 billion business finds itself at a critical juncture, but that’s the case with Amazon Web Services, the cloud arm of Amazon, and the…

Matt Garman taking over as CEO with AWS at crossroads

Back in February, Google paused its AI-powered chatbot Gemini’s ability to generate images of people after users complained of historical inaccuracies. Told to depict “a Roman legion,” for example, Gemini would show…

Google still hasn’t fixed Gemini’s biased image generator

A feature Google demoed at its I/O confab yesterday, using its generative AI technology to scan voice calls in real time for conversational patterns associated with financial scams, has sent…

Google’s call-scanning AI could dial up censorship by default, privacy experts warn

Google’s going all in on AI — and it wants you to know it. During the company’s keynote at its I/O developer conference on Tuesday, Google mentioned “AI” more than…

The top AI announcements from Google I/O

Uber is taking a shuttle product it developed for commuters in India and Egypt and converting it for an American audience. The ride-hail and delivery giant announced Wednesday at its…

Uber has a new way to solve the concert traffic problem

Here are quick hits of the biggest news from the keynote as they are announced.

Google I/O 2024: Here’s everything Google just announced

Google is preparing to launch a new system to help address the problem of malware on Android. Its new live threat detection service leverages Google Play Protect’s on-device AI to…

Google takes aim at Android malware with an AI-powered live threat detection service

Users will be able to access the AR content by first searching for a location in Google Maps.

Google Maps is getting geospatial AR content later this year

The heat pump startup unveiled its first products and revealed details about performance, pricing and availability.

Quilt heat pump sports sleek design from veterans of Apple, Tesla and Nest

The space is available from the launcher and can be locked as a second layer of authentication.

Google’s new Private Space feature is like Incognito Mode for Android

Gemini, the company’s family of generative AI models, will enhance the smart TV operating system so it can generate descriptions for movies and TV shows.

Google TV to launch AI-generated movie descriptions

When triggered, the AI-powered feature will automatically lock the device down.

Android’s new Theft Detection Lock helps deter smartphone snatch and grabs

The company said it is increasing the on-device capability of its Google Play Protect system to detect fraudulent apps trying to breach sensitive permissions.

Google adds live threat detection and screen-sharing protection to Android

This latest release, one of many announcements from the Google I/O 2024 developer conference, focuses on improved battery life and other performance improvements, like more efficient workout tracking.

Wear OS 5 hits developer preview, offering better battery life

For years, Sammy Faycurry has been hearing from his registered dietitian (RD) mom and sister about how poorly many Americans eat and their struggles with delivering nutritional counseling. Although nearly…

Dietitian startup Fay has been booming from Ozempic patients and emerges from stealth with $25M from General Catalyst, Forerunner

Apple is bringing new accessibility features to iPads and iPhones, designed to cater to a diverse range of user needs.

Apple announces new accessibility features for iPhone and iPad users

TechCrunch Disrupt, our flagship startup event held annually in San Francisco, is back on October 28-30 — and you can expect a bustling crowd of thousands of startup enthusiasts. Exciting…

Startup Blueprint: TC Disrupt 2024 Builders Stage agenda sneak peek!

Mike Krieger, one of the co-founders of Instagram and, more recently, the co-founder of personalized news app Artifact (which TechCrunch corporate parent Yahoo recently acquired), is joining Anthropic as the…

Anthropic hires Instagram co-founder as head of product

Seven orgs so far have signed on to standardize the way data is collected and shared.

Venture orgs form alliance to standardize data collection

As cloud adoption continues to surge toward the $1 trillion mark in annual spend, we’re seeing a wave of enterprise startups gaining traction with customers and investors for tools to…

Alkira connects with $100M for a solution that connects your clouds

Charging has long been the Achilles’ heel of electric vehicles. One startup thinks it has a better way for apartment dwelling EV drivers to charge overnight.

Orange Charger thinks a $750 outlet will solve EV charging for apartment dwellers

So did investors laugh them out of the room when they explained how they wanted to replace Quickbooks? Kind of.

Embedded accounting startup Layer secures $2.3M toward goal of replacing QuickBooks

While an increasing number of companies are investing in AI, many are struggling to get AI-powered projects into production — much less delivering meaningful ROI. The challenges are many. But…

Weka raises $140M as the AI boom bolsters data platforms

PayHOA, a previously bootstrapped Kentucky-based startup that offers software for self-managed homeowner associations (HOAs), is an example of how real-world problems can translate into opportunity. It just raised a $27.5…

Meet PayHOA, a profitable and once-bootstrapped SaaS startup that just landed a $27.5M Series A

Restaurant365, which offers a restaurant management suite, has raised a hot $175M from ICONIQ Growth, KKR and L Catterton.

Restaurant365 orders in $175M at $1B+ valuation to supersize its food service software stack 

Venture firm Shilling has launched a €50M fund to support growth-stage startups in its own portfolio and to invest in startups everywhere else. 

Portuguese VC firm Shilling launches €50M opportunity fund to back growth-stage startups

Chang She, previously the VP of engineering at Tubi and a Cloudera veteran, has years of experience building data tooling and infrastructure. But when She began working in the AI…

LanceDB, which counts Midjourney as a customer, is building databases for multimodal AI