In this section I review one AI-powered application and demonstrate how it can be used to create new value. I include concrete examples and lessons learned from actual work with customers, and only recommend tools that I have used extensively myself and with customers.
Canva has been "the tool for social posts and quick decks" for years, but with their latest release they've basically turned Canva into a visual workbench where AI sits right inside the canvas, not in a separate chat. One prompt can now turn into a presentation, video, email, form, doc, or even code - and you stay in the same editor while AI keeps proposing layouts, assets, and text. That's their new "Creative Operating System", and they're calling it their biggest product launch to date.
What I like about this for business teams is that it's not "here's one more AI side-app." Instead, it's "the tool you already use now has AI on every tab." Presentations, whiteboards, videos, emails, sheets, even AI-generated video clips via Google's Veo-3 are now reachable from the same place. That simplifies adoption.
- Ask Canva / Canva AI as an in-editor collaborator
There's now a chat-style assistant you can call upon with @ right in a design ("make this title shorter," "give me 3 variants for LinkedIn," "turn this whiteboard into slides"). It's context-aware - it "sees" the design you're working on - so you don't have to restate instructions. This is a great example of "verification over inspection": humans still check the final slide, but AI handles 80% of the mechanical edits.
- Magic Studio running across types, not just images
Magic Design, Magic Write, and the other "Magic" tools are now grouped and upgraded. The important shift is that you can start with intent ("I need a launch kit for our new AI feature") and Canva generates multi-format assets you can refine - presentation + social + email - already branded. This is very close to the workflow-amplified pattern I described in GloryHack in a previous issue: humans choose direction, AI fills it in.
- AI video inside Canva
This is new and underrated: type a prompt, and Canva generates an 8-second, cinematic video clip with synced audio (powered by Google's Veo 3) that you can drop straight into a campaign video or deck. For teams that don't have motion designers on call, this unlock great value.
- AI for business surfaces: email + forms + sheets + code
Canva didn't just add AI to pretty pictures - they added AI to the business-y surfaces too: design an email, export the code to your ESP; make a form; use Canva Sheets with AI to turn data into visual dashboards; even generate code for small widgets. That's Canva moving from "design tool" to "visual productivity suite," powered by AI.
- Affinity now free + AI everywhere
Because they've made the Affinity suite free for all 260M users, Canva is basically saying: "you can do the heavy pro-design here, and we'll still give you AI assists on the web side." It's a clever way to win over people who thought Canva was too lightweight.
How I'd use this with customers
Campaign-in-a-meeting: start from a whiteboard, ask Canva to turn it into a deck, have it generate the social set, then export the email. One work session, four assets.
Localization at scale: design once, then ask Canva to localize text variations right in the design - faster than sending 30 screenshots to a designer.
Executive clarity: take a messy workshop board and say "make this a 6-slide exec summary" - the AI does first pass, you do the leadership-level verification.
Watch: building a crazy-big, AI-first design company
To go deeper on the mindset behind this release - rejection, iterating on the pitch, "column B" thinking, and embedding AI across the whole suite - in this interview with Canva's CEO Melanie Perkins: