The rise of AI marks a significant shift from decades defined by information chasing and a push for greater computing power.
Canva co-founder and CPO Cameron Adams calls this donning time “the age of imagination.” Which means: individuals and businesses should be able to put creativity into action with AI.
Canva hopes to position itself at the center of this shift with a neat suite of tools. The company’s new Creative Operating System (COS) integrates AI into every layer of content creation, creating a single, comprehensive creativity platform rather than a simple, template-based design tool.
“We are entering a new era where we need to rethink how we achieve our goals,” Adams said. “We’re enabling people’s imaginations and giving them the tools they need to take action.”
An ‘engine’ for creativity
Adams describes Canva’s platform as a three-layer stack: the top visual suite layer containing design, images and other content; In the center is a reciprocal plane; And a basic ownership model that has it all.
At the heart of Canva’s strategy is its Creative Operating System (COS). This “engine,” as Adams describes it, integrates documents, websites, presentations, sheets, whiteboards, videos, social content, hundreds of millions of images, illustrations, a rich sound library, and numerous templates, charts, and branded elements.
Adams explained that COS is getting a 2.0 upgrade, but the main development is the “middle, critical layer” that fully integrates AI and makes it accessible across different workflows. It gives creative and technical teams a single dashboard to create, edit and launch all types of content.
The underlying model is trained to understand “design complexity” so that the platform can match different elements – such as photos, videos, textures, or 3D graphics – to the branding style in real time, without the need for manual adjustments. It also supports direct collaboration, meaning teams across departments can co-create.
With a unified dashboard, a user working on a specific design can, for example, create a new piece (say, a presentation) within the same workflow without switching to another window or platform. Also, if they create an image and aren’t happy with it, they don’t have to go back and create it from scratch. They can instantly start editing, editing color or tone.
Another new capability in Coos, “Ask Canva,” provides direct design advice. Users can tag @canva to receive copy suggestions and smart edits. Or, they can highlight an image and instruct the AI ​​assistant to edit it or create variations.
“It’s a really unique interaction,” Adams said, adding that this AI design partner is always there. “It’s a real collaboration between people and AI, and we think it’s a revolutionary change.”
Other new features include a 2.0 video editor and email design with interactive form and drag-and-drop tools. What’s more, Canva is now included with Affiliation, its unified app for pro designers that includes vector, pixel, and layer workflows, and Affiliation is “free forever.”
Automated intelligence, supporting marketing
Branding is important for an enterprise. Canva has introduced new tools to help organizations consistently show up across their platforms. The new Canva Grow Engine integrates business objectives into the creative process so teams can workshop, create, distribute and optimize ads and other content.
As Adams explained: “It automatically scans your website, tells you who your audience is, what assets you use to promote your products, the message you want to send, creates the creative for you, and you can deploy it directly to the platform without ever leaving Canva.”
Marketing teams can now design and launch ads across platforms like Meta, track insights and optimize future content based on performance metrics. “Your brand system is now available within the AI ​​you’re working with,” notes Adams.
Success metrics and enterprise adoption
Canva’s COS impact is reflected in remarkable user metrics: over 250 million people use Canva every month, of which just over 29 million are paid. Adams reports that 41 billion designs have been created on Canva since launch, which equates to 1 billion per month.
“If you break it down, it turns out to be a crazy number of 386 designs being made every single second,” Adams said. Whereas in the early days, it took almost an hour for users to create a single design.
Canva’s customers include Walmart, Disney, Virgin Voyages, Pinterest, FedEx, Expedia and Exp Realty. Doxine, for one, reports that it has unlocked more than 500 hours of team capacity and saved more than $300,000 in design hours by fully integrating Canva into its content creation. Meanwhile, Disney uses translation capabilities for its internationalization work, Adams said.
Competitors in the design space
Canva plays into the evolving landscape of professional design tools, including Adobe Express and Figma. AI-powered challengers led by Microsoft Designer. and direct-to-consumer alternatives such as Visme and Piktochart.
Adobe Express (Starting at $9.99 a month for premium features) is known for its ease of use and integration with the broader Adobe Creative Cloud ecosystem. It includes access to professional-grade templates and Adobe’s extensive stock library, and incorporates Google’s Gemini 2.5 Flash image model and other general AI features so designers can create graphics using natural language cues. Some design-experienced users say they prefer its interface, controls, and technical advantages over Canva (such as the ability to import high-resolution PDFs).
figma (Starting at $3 a month for professional projects) is designed for its real-time collaboration, advanced prototyping capabilities and deep integration with dev workflows. However, some say it has a steep learning curve and high-fidelity design tools, making it preferable for professional designers, developers, and product teams to work on more complex projects.
Microsoft Designer (free version available; though a Microsoft 365 subscription is starting $9.99 a month unlocks additional features) takes advantage of Microsoft’s AI capabilities, CoPilot layout and text generation, and its integration with Dall-E powered image generation. The platform’s “Inspire” and “New Ideas” buttons provide design variations, and users can also import data from Excel, add 3D models from PowerPoint and access images from OneDrive.
However, users have reported that its stock photos and template and image libraries are limited compared to Canva’s vast collection, and its visuals can come across as outdated.
Canva’s advantage seems to lie in its extensive template library (over 600,000 ready-made uses) and asset library (141 million plus stock photos, videos, graphics, and audio elements). Its platform has also been praised for its ease of use and non-designer-friendly interface, allowing them to get started quickly without training.
Canva has also expanded into multiple content types – documents, websites, presentations, whiteboards, videos, and more – making its platform more of a comprehensive visual suite than just a graphics tool.
Canva is Four price levels: Canva free for one user; Canva Pro for $120 per year for one person; Canva Teams for $100 a year for each team member. and custom-priced Canva Enterprise.
Key takeaways: Be open, embrace human-AI collaboration
Canva’s COS is powered by Canva’s frontier model, an in-house, one-country, proprietary engine based on years of R&D and research partnerships, including the acquisition of visual AI company Leonardo. Adams notes that Canva works with top AI providers including OpenAI, Entropic and Google.
For technology teams, Canva’s approach offers important lessons, including a commitment to openness. “There are a lot of models floating around,” Adams noted. He advised that it is important for businesses to recognize when they should work with top models and when they should develop their own people.
For example, OpenEye and Anthropic recently announced integrations with Canva as a visual layer because, as Adams explained, they realized they didn’t have the ability to produce the same kind of editable designs that Canva could. This creates a mutually beneficial ecosystem.
Ultimately, Adams noted: “We have a core philosophy that the future is people and technology working together. It’s not either way. We want people to be at the center, with the creative spark, and use AI as a partner.”