Canva Acquires Leonardo.ai to Enhance Generative AI Capabilities

Canva, the popular design platform, has revealed its plans to acquire Leonardo.ai, an Australian startup renowned for its advancements in generative AI. This strategic move is aimed at expanding Canva’s suite of visual AI tools to include Leonardo.ai’s advanced text-to-image and text-to-video generators.

The financial terms of the acquisition have not been disclosed, but Canva’s co-founder, Cameron Adams, confirmed that Leonardo.ai will continue to operate its web platform independently, similar to how Canva manages the Affinity creative software suite it acquired earlier this year.

The integration of Leonardo.ai’s technology, including its Phoenix foundation model, into Canva’s Magic Studio products is expected to significantly enhance Canva’s capabilities. This includes the Magic Media image and video generator, positioning Canva as a strong competitor to Adobe’s creative software lineup.

While Canva’s recent acquisition of Affinity software has already positioned it against Adobe’s popular products like Illustrator and Photoshop, the addition of Leonardo.ai’s generative AI technology could provide a viable alternative to Adobe’s Firefly AI models.

Leonardo.ai has trained its models using a blend of licensed, synthetic, and open-source data, contrasting with Adobe’s recent policy changes that require transparency about user data use for training generative AI models. Canva’s acquisition of Leonardo.ai offers it an opportunity to establish itself as a growing alternative in the AI space, but it will need to navigate potential concerns from creators about AI data practices carefully.