Canva is betting its future on an AI overhaul that replaces templates with conversation

Canva, the design platform with 265 million monthly users, has launched a rebuilt version of its product called Canva AI 2.0, replacing its template-first approach with AI agents that build and iterate designs from conversational prompts.

Rather than selecting a template, users type what they need in plain language — say, a 12-page trip planning deck — and an AI agent assembles and refines the design. Integration with external services including Gmail, Slack $WORK, and Zoom $ZM enables content generation across platforms, and a persistent memory feature tracks individual working patterns over time. Designs can update automatically when brand imagery changes.

"We had to rearchitect the whole Canva platform," Canva COO and co-founder Cliff Obrecht told Fortune. He described a scenario in which the system searches the web overnight for trending topics, then generates and schedules social media posts entirely on its own. "It can help you complete your whole job."

The relaunch extends Canva beyond design into workflow automation, putting it in more direct competition with Microsoft $MSFT and Google $GOOGL Workspace, according to Bloomberg. The agents are capable of pulling information from Slack and Google Calendar, and can be configured to manage tasks like memos autonomously.

The company has developed a proprietary AI model trained for design work, with capabilities that include per-object photo editing, multi-layer poster generation, and access to its extensive template library. According to the company, its AI infrastructure delivers speeds seven times greater and costs thirty times lower than what it calls comparable frontier models. Danny Wu, Canva's head of AI products, told Bloomberg the platform had handled upward of 50 trillion tokens over the past year, with March alone accounting for more than 10 trillion.

To fund the overhaul, Canva has poured hundreds of millions of dollars into AI and acquisitions. Among its recent acquisitions are Leonardo AI, an image-generation startup purchased in 2024, along with agent-building platform Simtheory and marketing automation firm Ortto, both of which Fortune reported were bought within the past few weeks.

Canva will offer tiered pricing for the new AI tools. Free users receive a limited credit allowance, while an "AI pass" tier at $100 a month unlocks a larger quota. At the top tier, enterprise customers — a segment generating $500 million in annual recurring revenue — are granted the broadest set of AI capabilities.

The company, which reported $4 billion in revenue for 2025, is valued at $42 billion based on recent secondary share sales. CEO and co-founder Melanie Perkins told Bloomberg she experienced the preceding two years as a 'long dark tunnel,' consumed by development work whose outcome remained uncertain. "The world is shifting," she said. Generative AI "is the biggest change in all of our lifetime."

The announcement arrives at a moment when software valuations have been squeezed by market anxiety over what AI developers — OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic among them — could do to incumbents' revenue. Adobe $ADBE stock is down more than 30% over the past 12 months. Because Canva remains off public markets, its $42 billion valuation — established through recent secondary share transactions — has not been subject to the same investor pressure. "We've fortunately avoided being hit by that SaaS apocalypse," Obrecht told Fortune.