SYDNEY: Canva has announced plans to acquire Leonardo.ai, an Australian startup specializing in generative AI for content and research, as part of its initiative to develop a top-tier suite of visual AI tools, according to Techcrunch.
The financial terms of the deal have not been disclosed, but Canva intends to incorporate Leonardo.ai’s customizable text-to-image and text-to-video generators into its platform. In the announcement, Canva co-founder Cameron Adams stated that Leonardo.ai would continue developing its web platform independently, similar to Canva’s approach with the Affinity creative software suite it acquired in March. The integration of Leonardo.ai’s technology, including the Phoenix foundation model, will be expedited into Canva’s Magic Studio products, such as the Magic Media image and video generator.
Canva has been expanding its platform with features resembling an office suite but continues to be a strong competitor to Adobe’s creative software. The acquisition of Affinity positions Canva to challenge Adobe products like Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign. Leonardo.ai could potentially offer a competitive alternative to Adobe’s Firefly generative AI models.
Leonardo.ai informed TechCrunch that its models are trained using a combination of licensed, synthetic, and publicly available/open-source data, a less specific approach compared to Adobe’s disclosure for Firefly. Adobe recently faced backlash over a policy update requiring explicit statements about user data not being used for training its generative AI models. As Canva seeks to position itself as a rising alternative in the market, it will need to navigate these issues carefully to avoid similar criticism from creators concerned about generative AI.
