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A free guide by Mariah Brunner ↗ INSTAGRAM ↗ TIKTOK

Canva Is Now a Full
AI Design Agent

Canva used to be drag and drop. Now you describe what you want and it builds the whole thing in your brand. Here’s every new AI feature and how to use it.

On April 16, 2026, Canva launched Canva AI 2.0. Instead of clicking through menus, you tell Canva what you need and it builds it, with your layout, copy, images and brand. It started as a research preview and has been opening up to more people since. (9to5Mac)

The part I care about most is that the output is editable. Every photo, headline and shape is its own piece, so you can swap and move things instead of starting over.

5 AI Features Inside Canva Now

01

Conversational design

Tell Canva what you want in plain English. Ask it to redesign a deck in your brand colors, or to build a spring sale carousel for Instagram. It writes the copy, picks images, lays it out and applies your brand.

Where: type into the Canva AI box on the Canva homepage, or open Canva AI inside a design you’re editing.

02

Your brand, remembered

Set up your Brand Kit once with your logo, colors and fonts, and Canva AI designs with it. Canva AI 2.0 also added a memory that learns your style and preferences the more you use it. No Brand Kit yet? Give Canva AI your website link and it will pull your brand from the public page.

Where: Brand in the left sidebar of the homepage.

03

Connectors to your other apps

Canva AI can pull real info from the tools you already use. The first connectors are Slack, Notion, Zoom, Gmail, Google Drive and Google Calendar. Think recap decks from a Zoom call, or a morning brief built from your inbox and calendar. It can also run tasks on a schedule, like a weekly batch of social posts.

04

Magic Layers

Upload a flat image, like a single-page PNG or JPG of a poster or an AI image, and Canva splits it into layers you can edit. Text comes back as real text boxes and objects become movable. It launched in March 2026 as a public beta in the US, UK, Canada and Australia first. (Magic Layers)

05

Claude Design sends to Canva

If you design in Claude, you can send it to Canva as an editable design, so your team can edit it in Canva without a Claude account. Ask Claude for a design in any chat, then pick Canva when you export. (My Claude Design guide)

3 Prompts To Paste Into Canva AI

Canva AI does much better with a real brief than with "make me a post." Fill in the brackets and paste.

01

Build a design from your notes

Brand Design Brief
You are my designer inside Canva. Build a [FORMAT: Instagram carousel, 10 slides / one-page flyer / 8-slide pitch deck] using my Brand Kit (colors, fonts and logo). If no Brand Kit is set, pull my brand from [MY WEBSITE URL]. What it's about: [TOPIC OR OFFER] Who it's for: [AUDIENCE, e.g. busy moms who want to start a side business] The one thing they should do after seeing it: [ACTION, e.g. comment GUIDE, book a call, buy before Friday] Content to use (use my words, don't invent facts, prices or dates): [PASTE YOUR COPY, NOTES OR OUTLINE] Steps: 1. Plan the structure first and show me a one-line outline per slide or section before you design. 2. Slide 1 (or the top of the page) is a hook of 8 words or fewer. 3. Keep every text block under 25 words. One idea per slide. 4. Use my own photos if I attached any. Only use stock or AI images where I didn't give you one. 5. Make every element editable. No flattened images of text. Output: the finished design plus a short list of anything you guessed, so I can check it.

02

One design, every platform

Open your finished design first, then paste this into Canva AI.

Resize For Every Platform
Using the design I have open, make a matching set for every place I post it: - Instagram post (4:5) and Story (9:16) - TikTok cover (9:16) - LinkedIn post (1:1) - [ANY OTHER SIZE, e.g. YouTube thumbnail or Pinterest pin] Rules: - Keep my Brand Kit colors, fonts and logo on every version. - Rearrange the layout for each size. Don't just crop. - Keep all text inside the safe zone so nothing gets cut off by the app's buttons. - Keep the headline word for word. You can shorten the body text on small formats, but tell me what you cut. When you're done, list each version and flag any where text looks tight or an image got cropped badly.

03

Your weekly content batch

This one uses scheduling and a connector, so connect the app first.

Weekly Batch On Autopilot
Every [DAY, e.g. Monday at 8am], make me a weekly content batch in my Brand Kit: - 3 Instagram carousel ideas (5 slides each) on [MY TOPIC] - 2 Story graphics promoting [MY OFFER OR LINK] - 1 quote graphic using a line from my content For context, use [CONNECTED SOURCE, e.g. my Google Drive folder "Content Notes" or this week's Slack #marketing channel]. Rules: use my voice (plain, warm, direct), no made-up stats, and keep each slide under 25 words. Save everything as editable drafts in a folder named with this week's date, then send me a 3-line summary of what you made.
Good To Know

Plans And Limits

Canva measures AI in Standard, Premium and Ultra uses, and every plan gets a monthly allowance. Free gets a small one. Pro (about $18 a month in the US) gets up to 2,000 Standard, 200 Premium or 20 Ultra uses a month. Business is about $25 per person a month. Big agent jobs like conversational design count as the expensive kind, so they use up your allowance faster. Prices change, so check canva.com/pricing before you upgrade.

Want the basics too? Here are the Magic Studio tools I use every week.