Canva AI 2.0 can create an entire brand campaign from a text prompt

The frontier of creative software is becoming a battle of the AI assistants. With Adobe already making bold claims about its Firefly AI Assistant, Canva's now launched Canva AI 2.0, which it thinks will change the way we think about design work.

Canva AI 2.0 is a new conversational orchestration layer that serves as a hub for the browser-based platform's tools. Instead of starting a project with a blank page or canvas and using specific tools to create a design in linear fashion, users dive straight into conversation with the AI assistant, telling it what they want to create. This is intended to save time compared to using individual tools manually, while making it easier to populate and modify a collection of design assets at once.

From the initial text prompt, Canva AI 2.0 will generate layered, editable output, which can be modified with manual tools or by continuing to interact with the chatbot. It's like vibe coding for graphic design. You can start out with a clear objective or brief, or try out an incomplete thought and see where it takes you.

You can instantly generate content in multiple formats, making it a potential time-saver for multi-channel campaigns. The output comprises individual components with layout, hierarchy, and, Canva says, consistent branding throughout. "Object-based intelligence" means that every element remains editable, so you can continue to refine any individual asset, taking manual control when needed.

A key strength is that Canva AI 2.0 can take coordinated action across the entire project, so you can change various assets simultaneously, or you can ask it to modify a single asset. It also allows collaboration, so members of a team can work on a project together.

The platform also has what Canva's calling a Memory Library. It can remember styles, helping to keep projects on brand. It also learns from the design decisions you make, which Canva says makes its suggestions more useful the more you use it.

Web research lets you gather information from the web and bring it into a design, while Canva Code 2.0 lets you design interactive apps from text prompts. New Connectors can plug into apps like Slack, Google Drive and Zoom, so you can do things like generate meeting summaries from Zoom transcripts. turn customer emails into personalised sales pitches, or build a company newsletter from activity on Slack.

Canva AI 2.0 is currently available as a research preview. You can find our more on the website.