Canva dominated generative AI in Australia in 2023

AI has been the buzzword of the tech world in 2023. So much so that it — and words related to AI — have been dominating a variety of ‘word of the year’ lists. Companies across the globe, including OpenAI, Microsoft, Google, Salesforce, Amazon and so forth, have been fighting for AI supremacy. Here in Australia, it seems like there has been a dominant force, at least when it comes to generative AI — Canva.

The Aussie unicorn made no secret of pushing into the generative AI space this year as it went so far as to launch its first few ‘Magic’ tools — Magic Edit and Magic Design — during the same 24-hour period of Adobe launching its own Firefly and Sensai AI tools.

It followed this in early October with an entire suite of AI tools, named Magic Studio. Accompanying this was a $200 million AI royalty program for Canva users, as well as  Canva Shield — an enterprise-grade security, privacy and indemnification platform “to provide teams and organisations with peace of mind when creating content”.

Exactly two months after Magic Studio’s launch, Canva has provided a status update, which includes some meaty figures.

According to the company, more than 170 million people are using the platform each month. This is a 20 million uptick from the 150 million figure quoted back in October.

It also told SmartCompany that Canva’s AI products have been used over four billion times and that the most popular tools are the one-click background remover, Magic Media and Magic Write.

It’s worth noting that Canva has offered AI tools long before October 2023. In fact, Magic Write was launched in 2022. So the four billion usage figure is overall, not since Magic Studio launched in October.

When it comes to overall design usage, over 20 billion designs are said to have been created with Canva, which it says equates to 280 every second, or, a million each hour.

Considering that Canva’s entire bread and butter is content generation, it stands to reason that it was well-positioned to be the generative AI flag bearer for businesses in Australia. And it’s unlikely it will slow down anytime soon.

Just a few months ago Blackbird sold off $150 million worth of its Canva shares, which it had held since 2015. We certainly don’t know what the plans are here, but often sales like this frees up equity to enable startups to gun for larger funding opportunities overseas. A healthy cash injection from the US — where Canva does have offices — would be a great thing for its AI play.

Then there’s the raw numbers. Canva’s recent Marketing and AI report revealed that at the time of its publication, 375 million images and videos had been created with Magic Media, its translation tool had been used 1.6 million times, background remover had been utilised 2 billion times and over 3 billion words had been written with Magic Write.

Those are not rookie numbers. Canva’s rate of adoption is growing exponentially with the 20 million user growth in the past 2 months eclipsing what the company managed to achieve in its first eight years.

While Canva didn’t comment on its future AI plans, it will be worth keeping a close eye on the company in 2024. AI popularity is showing no signs of slowing down, and neither is Canva.