Canva unveils magical AI-powered spreadsheets, graphs, and more

Canva, which began life as a platform for visual design, has tossed the rules aside. In addition to Visual Suite 2.0, the company has added coding, spreadsheets, and graphs to its AI capabilities. It’s a rather sharp change for Canva—although if a social media company like Facebook can toss its brand identity aside for a failed run at the metaverse, then why can’t Canva try its own hand at its own pivot?

Canva’s shift toward the spreadsheet actually makes sense, according to the company. “While data is a critical part of visual communication, whether it’s creating charts, forms, reports, dashboards, or infographics, it’s also complex and disconnected from the creative process,” Melanie Perkins, the chief executive of Canva, said in a blog post.

The snippet of video that shows off what’s being called “Canva Sheets” is impressive: not only are Canva’s Sheets visually bright and dynamic, but Canva has included so-called “Magic Insights” and “Magic Formulas.” Instead of simply fishing around to create a formula, you can enter it in natural language and Canva’s AI will come up with the formula and apply it for you. It’s a reminder that Microsoft Excel—for all of the power it offers and its installed base—just isn’t as visually appealing.

Canva

Canva, which can import files from Excel, is designed to tell visual stories. It’s free to use, though syncing with your brand logo or storing more than 5GB within Canva’s cloud will cost extra.

Canva Sheets and the related Charts app are designed to tell visual stories, Canva says. Like Excel, you can highlight data and Canva Charts will recommend one or a series of charts. Again, though, they’re bright and dynamic—something that Excel really isn’t.

Canva didn’t say when these features would arrive, but some of the graphics indicate that they’re “coming soon.”

Canva

Canva says that both Sheets and Charts can be integrated with other features offered by Canva, such as the AI-powered Magic Write feature to fill in blanks or holes in existing copy.

And then there’s Canva AI, which is what other companies might call an LLM or chatbot. Within Canva, it appears ready to be a design assistant. In one example, a user could upload a photo and have Canva AI turn it into an Instagram introduction post. A related “Design for me” option helps iterate designs, optionally based on a reference image.

Canva

It might seem odd that Canva AI can also generate code, but Canva seems to think that someone like a web designer might use it to code an element or widget rather than duck out to use another program.

Canva’s hope is that you’ll use Visual Suite 2.0 as a jumping-off point for this, moving back and forth between various design types to create what you need. There’s even a new photo editor, with a way to take an object and inject it into an AI-generated background while maintaining lighting.

Canva

“Whether you’re brainstorming on a whiteboard, mapping out your strategy in a doc, or building a campaign across slides, spreadsheets, and socials, everything lives in one place,” Perkins wrote. “This is more than just convenience; it’s a whole new way to work.”