In a nutshell:
- Canva is launching a new “Creative Operating System,” two days after Adobe Max.
- Ask Canva’s AI is now more responsive.
- Now you can go from clips to an edited, publishable video with one click.
- Affinity is now free for everyone, forever.
What’s going?
Canva has unveiled its biggest product update yet, the “Creative Operating System”, which combines an updated “Visual Suite”, new design AI tools, and marketing features designed to help individuals and teams create faster and stay relevant.
Affinity, Canva’s professional design suite, is now available for free to everyone and is directly integrated into the platform.
On a smaller scale, though, you can also now finally use Canva to design HTML elements for email, which could be useful to large and small businesses and individuals. Additionally, Canva is getting its own survey system called “Forms,” which can be added to websites or other designs and will flow responses into your Canva Sheets.
Meanwhile, rival Figma announced its acquisition of Weavy AI, soon to be rebranded as Figma Weave. The company, via Figma Weave, will facilitate the development of image, video, animation, motion design, and VFX media generation and editing capabilities on the Figma platform.
(AI) will hold your hand while you create
Adobe made its AI promises during its “Max” keynote, and the biggest one was the AI Assistant in Adobe Express. The feature essentially lets you create or refine entire designs using an “AI chat” window, all from within the company’s free web editor, similar to Canva.
Not to be outdone, Canva is also bringing “AI Assistant” to its browser-based designer, but it promises better control than Adobe’s version.
The idea is to simplify things, but it also makes it a bit more difficult to submit support requests. Meanwhile, Canva is trying to integrate AI naturally into its entire workflow by updating its existing chatbot, “Ask Canva”.
Currently, “Ask Canva” simply resides in one place on the screen where you can ask it to generate text or images. Now, Canva says you can call it up anywhere in your design, and it will be able to provide feedback, make suggestions, or make changes to specific design elements.
Along with an updated AI model, the idea is to make it a “true creative partner,” but we can just be happy that if you accidentally bring it up, all your tools won’t be thrown away.
Canva Video 2.0
Users can also expect other major platform updates. For example, “Video 2.0” has been completely revamped to make editing more intuitive. Creators can trim, sync, and layer clips using an updated timeline, while artificial intelligence helps automate transitions, text timing, and effects.
Called “Magic Video”, it works like the existing “Magic Design” feature, but Canva says it’s a bit more powerful. You’ll upload videos and tell the AI what type of video you want, just like with Magic Design, but you’ll also be able to choose the tone and editing style of your video from drop-down menus, then browse through a “new library of trendy templates” to get your final result.
That should mean more control, as well as more transition effects and title cards.
It’s all free, and it’s reminiscent of Adobe’s upcoming YouTube Shorts feature for Premiere, which will be added to the free Premiere app for iPhone, as well as directly to YouTube. It won’t be released for a while, but Adobe says it will include “exclusive” effects, transitions, stickers, and templates, though there won’t be any artificial intelligence to put it all together for you. You’ll be able to publish directly to YouTube without leaving the app, though.
Canva can do this with a few platforms, like “Instagram”, but it doesn’t have direct integration with “YouTube” yet.
New (free) Affinity
“Affinity”, Canva’s professional design suite, is now available for free to everyone and is directly integrated into the platform, benefiting users looking for an affordable or free alternative to Adobe Photoshop.
As a downloadable tool, it offers better control than Canva’s online editor, including tools like vector editing, which makes sense – it wasn’t always part of the Canva family. Canva actually acquired Affinity in March of last year, and while the acquisition of a beloved tool isn’t always good news for existing users, Canva’s latest announcement should go a long way toward helping it earn a good reputation.
With these steps, Canva is “positioning itself” as a full-fledged creative ecosystem that combines design, marketing, and artificial intelligence on a single platform.
Affinity stood out with its buy-once-and-keep-forever pricing, making it very competitive compared to Photoshop’s subscription model. Now, Canva says Affinity will be free for everyone “forever.” While Adobe has been creating free and light versions of its core apps for mobile and the web in recent years, it has yet to test its features in a free desktop editor.
Aside from pricing, Canva also says it’s combining all of Affinity’s various functions into one program, so you’ll no longer need to swap between Affinity Photo, Affinity Designer, and Affinity Publisher based on your needs.
When it’s all live?
Compared to Adobe, where most of the features introduced at the “Max” show are still in beta or development, Canva’s latest updates will go live today as part of the Creative Operating System launch.
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