Canva Upgrades AI With Editable Layered Image Generation

Canva recently unveiled a series of new AI products and features, but one particularly technical update stands out for its potential to transform the user experience. The company has developed a new foundational AI model for design that promises to solve one of the most common frustrations with AI-generated images.

A New Foundation for AI Design

Foundational models are the underlying frameworks that process AI requests. While traditional diffusion models powered early AI image generators by creating "flat" images, they have evolved into more complex systems. Canva's new model introduces a significant change: it generates images in distinct layers while maintaining contextual awareness of the entire composition.

For users, this means you can now select individual elements within an AI-generated image and use Canva's full suite of editing tools to modify them. This eliminates the tedious process of regenerating an entire image just to correct a minor flaw, marking a massive improvement in workflow efficiency.

Canva, now a $65 billion company, built its success on making design accessible. AI image generators share this goal, despite ongoing controversies and concerns. A common limitation has been the lack of robust post-generation editing tools. Canva's new capability to apply its user-friendly, one-click tools to AI images is a feature that should make competitors take notice.

"With Canva's foundational model, you can go from prompt to a fully editable, layered design," said Robert Kawalsky, global head of product at Canva. "You can use the richness of Canva's editor to literally click any element, any ingredient, and manipulate it... This is just a really fundamental shift."

The Competitive Landscape

Enhanced editing for AI content is a high-demand feature. Adobe recently introduced chatbot-style AI assistants in Photoshop and Express for isolated edits. However, these assistants function by taking text commands, similar to ChatGPT, rather than allowing direct manual manipulation of objects in an AI-generated image. At Adobe Max, Adobe's Vice President of Generative AI, Alexandru Costin, confirmed that the company is also planning to release similar layer-based AI capabilities soon.

This new model is also expected to enhance the performance of Canva's in-house AI image generator, which, while great for beginners, can now compete more effectively with other leading tools.

Affinity Suite Now Free for Canva Users

In another major announcement, Canva revealed a significant update regarding its 2024 acquisition, Affinity. The professional design program will now be available to all Canva users for free, permanently, with no subscription required. This move makes Affinity an incredibly affordable and powerful alternative to Adobe's increasingly expensive Creative Cloud suite.

Other platform updates include the ability to create data-capture forms, a more advanced video timeline similar to Premiere Pro, and HTML-compliant email templates. These updates follow Canva's previous AI-focused releases, which included tools for STEM-oriented tasks.

To learn more, explore how to write the best AI image prompt and discover the best AI image generators available today.