Canva turns into an AI app builder

If you still think of Canva as just an easy way to drag and drop social media graphics, think again.

On Thursday, the Australian design giant unveiled an ambitious suite of new features, turning its design platform into an all-in-one workspace powered by an AI assistant, prompt-to-app coding, and built-in spreadsheets.

Prompt to code, directly inside your canvas

The marquee addition is Canva Code, a feature that lets users generate interactive mini-apps—like custom calculators, searchable widgets, or dynamic maps—purely through text prompts, which can then be embedded right into designs.

Canva co-founder and chief product officer Cameron Adams told TechCrunch that the company partnered with Anthropic to power the feature. The idea originated internally: Canva's own staff had been heavily leaning on generative AI to build interactive prototypes rather than presenting static mock-ups, so management decided to turn that internal workflow into a public product.

While prompt-to-app coding has exploded recently through standalone platforms like Cursor, Bolt.new, Lovable, and Replit, Canva’s integration feels uniquely practical. Users can now design a client pitch or marketing site and build interactive tools without ever touching a dedicated IDE.

Alongside code generation, the flagship Canva AI assistant can now spin up images, draft copy, generate documents, and pitch visual concepts. Canva is also stepping on Adobe and Pixelmator’s toes with new photo-editing tools that eliminate image artifacts and generate backgrounds that match surrounding lighting.

Taking on office suites with Canva Sheets

Canva is also accelerating its enterprise push with Canva Sheets, a full-featured spreadsheet tool baked directly into the editor.

It features Magic Insights, which surfaces high-level takeaways from raw numbers, and Magic Charts, which turns table data into branded visual charts complete with company colors and logos. The tool already plugs directly into services like HubSpot, Google Analytics, and Statista.

Of course, pushing AI deeper into creative software is not without friction. Artists remain deeply skeptical about generative models training on their work, and layoffs earlier this month of some technical writing staff raised eyebrows—especially coming nine months after Canva leadership reportedly urged staff to use AI tools wherever possible. Adams maintained the cuts were part of a standard restructuring rather than a direct result of automation.

Why it matters

For solo creators, small business owners, and non-technical marketers, this significantly collapses the stack needed to produce modern digital assets. Building an interactive quiz, mortgage calculator, or branded KPI report previously required juggling three different tools and basic coding knowledge; now it happens inside a single web canvas.

For the broader industry, Canva is waging a two-front war. On the creative side, it is chasing Adobe's prosumer base by lowering the barrier to complex photo manipulation. On the enterprise front, Canva Sheets directly challenges Google Workspace, Airtable, and Notion for team collaboration.

We think partnering with Anthropic to package agentic coding inside a design suite is an exceptionally clever wedge. Standalone coding sandboxes intimidate casual users, but embedding functional mini-apps directly into a presentation or webpage makes generative coding genuinely accessible to millions.

The real test will be output quality and community trust. As Canva automates everything from copywriting to layout and code, maintaining visual distinction will get harder, and navigating the persistent tension with human creatives is a challenge software updates cannot easily solve.