Canva Unveils ‘Creative Operating System’ With New AI Tools, Marketing Platform, and Free Affinity Suite

Canva has announced a major overhaul of its platform with the launch of what it calls the Creative Operating System (Creative OS) - a broad upgrade that combines new design tools, artificial intelligence features, and marketing capabilities into one connected ecosystem. The update marks Canva’s most significant product expansion since its launch over a decade ago.

At the centre of this rollout is a rebuilt Visual Suite, which now includes a redesigned video editor, interactive forms, built-in data tools, and an email design feature. The new Video 2.0 editor is aimed at social media creators and offers a faster editing timeline, AI-assisted video generation, and a library of trending templates for short-form platforms like TikTok, Instagram Reels, and YouTube Shorts.

Canva is also introducing Forms, a drag-and-drop tool for adding interactive elements such as surveys and sign-ups directly into designs or websites. Responses are automatically collected in Canva Sheets, which can be connected to Canva Code to build and publish interactive, data-powered pages without third-party integrations.

One of the most requested features, Email Design, has also been added to the platform. It allows users to design, preview, and export branded marketing emails in HTML format, ready to send through other email systems.

A major part of Canva’s announcement is its new AI design model, which the company claims is the first artificial intelligence system trained to understand full design structure, including layout, hierarchy, and brand logic. The model powers several new features, such as instant design generation and AI-created visual elements that can be edited and branded directly in the Canva editor.

Another addition, Ask @Canva, lets users tag Canva’s AI within their designs to get context-aware suggestions, visual ideas, or layout feedback without leaving the workspace.

The update also expands Canva’s focus beyond design into marketing with a new product called Canva Grow. The feature is built for businesses and marketing teams, allowing them to generate campaign ideas, create on-brand ads, publish directly to social platforms like Meta, and track performance using AI-driven insights, all from within Canva.

To help larger teams maintain brand consistency, Canva has introduced a new Brand Kit system, which organises brand assets such as logos, templates, and style guidelines in one place. Canva’s AI can now automatically design according to these settings, keeping visual content consistent across teams.

The company also confirmed that Affinity, the professional photo and vector design suite it acquired earlier this year, will now be free for all users. Affinity will integrate with Canva so users can design or edit in Affinity and collaborate or publish through Canva. Premium users will also gain access to Canva AI tools inside the Affinity interface.

With these updates, Canva is positioning itself as a full creative platform rather than just a design tool. The addition of AI-based design generation, built-in marketing functions, and professional-grade editing tools places it in direct competition with platforms like Adobe Creative Cloud and Figma.

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