VENDORiQ: Canva Visual Suite 2.0: A Challenger Emerges in the Productivity Landscape

Why it’s Important

Canva’s move directly challenges established productivity suites. By integrating design and data capabilities with AI, it aims to streamline workflows and empower users to create visually rich content more efficiently within a single platform. This unified approach could appeal to organisations seeking to reduce reliance on disparate tools and simplify cross-functional collaboration.

Canva’s expansion into spreadsheets and data visualisation indicates a clear ambition to move upmarket and compete more directly with design software and productivity tools. While Canva offers a compelling user experience, larger organisations will have concerns about its ability to meet stringent enterprise governance demands.

The Canva Visual Suite 2.0 launch coincided with reports of redundancies within Canva’s technical writing team. The reported redundancies in Canva’s technical writing team raise critical questions about the practical implications of AI adoption within the company. While Canva asserts that its AI strategy will “amplify, not replace, human creativity”, the job cuts suggest a different reality, raising questions about the company’s stated philosophy of AI augmenting rather than replacing human creativity. For ICT leaders, this highlights the broader industry trend of evolving roles due to AI and the need for careful change management and workforce planning. 

Who’s Impacted

• CIO: Needs to evaluate the potential of Canva’s integrated visual productivity suite against existing investments in Adobe Creative Cloud. Consider conducting pilot programs to assess user adoption, security posture, and integration capabilities within the current IT infrastructure.
• Marketing and communications leaders: Can explore Canva’s strengths in automating the creation of visual content and streamlining campaign development and brand consistency. In addition, they should assess the AI-powered content generation tools for efficiency gains.
• Finance leaders (CFO): Should analyse the potential cost implications of adopting a new platform versus expanding existing competitive product licences. Investigate the pricing models for Canva’s enterprise offerings and compare them to current expenditures.
• Human resources leaders: Need to be aware of the broader implications of AI on job roles, as exemplified by Canva’s technical writing team changes. They should proactively plan for workforce reskilling and potential role redesigns across the organisation.

What’s Next

• Conduct a thorough evaluation of Canva’s Visual Suite 2.0 features, focusing on its spreadsheet and data visualisation capabilities, to determine its viability as an enterprise-grade solution.
• Assess Canva’s security, compliance, and scalability roadmap to ensure it meets the organisation’s requirements for sensitive data and large-scale deployments.
• Develop a clear understanding of Canva’s AI ethics framework and data governance policies, particularly in light of the reported job cuts in their technical writing division.
• Compare the total cost of ownership of Canva’s suite against existing productivity solutions, considering licensing, training, and potential integration complexities.
• Monitor the evolution of Canva’s AI capabilities to understand the long-term strategic direction and potential for vendor lock-in.

Related Advisory

• VENDORiQ: Canva Unlocks a New Era of Visual Communication with its New Features