Canva launches Craft, its first in-house AI image model

Canva has released its first in-house AI image model, called Craft, built by its own research team with contributions from Leonardo.ai, which Canva acquired in 2024. It is available now to all Canva users and takes a different approach to image generation: it plans the design first, then draws it.

What happened

Canva Craft was announced on 22 October and is live on the Canva platform. The model was developed by Canva's research team to compete with image models from Google, OpenAI, ByteDance, and Meta, according to TechCrunch.

The model works in two stages.

1. It reads your prompt and creates a plan that covers the spatial relationships between elements, their relative scale, visual hierarchy, and any text that needs to appear.
2. It then generates an image based on that plan, at up to 2K resolution, in up to 30 different aspect ratios suited to different platforms.

Canva trained Craft on its own library of human-designed templates, including posters, social posts, presentations, infographics, menus, and typography-heavy layouts, rather than on photographs. That focus on design-first training is why the model handles text and object placement more accurately than general image models.

Two faster, lower-cost versions, called Craft-fast and Craft-ultrafast, are in development and will be released soon, though no date has been announced.

What it means for your work

• You can generate images with readable text inside them, which has been a common problem with other AI image tools.
• You can make precise edits to one part of an image without the rest changing.
• Images you generate with Craft can be converted into layered, editable designs using Magic Layers, Canva's image-to-design tool.
• Canva plans to make Craft available through an MCP, a connector that lets AI use your apps such as Drive, Slack or Notion, so you will eventually be able to generate Canva images from inside ChatGPT or Gemini. Pricing and timing for that have not been announced.

What to do now

1. Open Canva and go to the Dream Lab tab. That is where Craft is available.
2. Try it on a design that needs text inside the image, such as a social post, a poster, or a presentation slide.
3. After generating, use Magic Layers to turn the result into an editable design if you want to adjust individual elements.
4. If you use the Canva API for any workflows, check Canva's developer documentation for Craft access details, as the model will also be available there.

Craft is available to all Canva users now. Pricing details for API access and the faster model versions have not been announced.