(Web Desk) - Canva has revealed plans to acquire Leonardo.ai, an Australian startup specialising in generative AI for content and research, as part of its strategy to develop a top-tier suite of visual AI tools, Techcrunch reported.
Although the financial details of the acquisition have not been disclosed, Canva will integrate Leonardo.ai's customizable text-to-image and text-to-video generators into its offerings.
In Canva’s announcement, cofounder Cameron Adams mentioned that Leonardo.ai will keep developing its web platform independently, similar to how Canva continues to handle the Affinity creative software suite it acquired in March.
Leonardo.ai’s technology and Phoenix foundation model will be quickly incorporated into Canva’s Magic Studio products, including the Magic Media image and video generator.
Canva has been expanding its platform with office suite-like features recently, but it remains a major competitor to Adobe’s creative software lineup.
While the Affinity acquisition positions Canva to compete with Adobe products like Illustrator, Photoshop, and InDesign, Leonardo.ai could serve as a viable alternative to Adobe’s Firefly generative AI models.
Leonardo.ai informed TechCrunch that its models are trained using a mix of licensed, synthetic, and publicly available/open-source data, which is less specific than Adobe’s disclosure for Firefly.
Adobe recently faced criticism over a policy update that required explicit statements about user data not being used for training its generative AI models.
Canva has the opportunity to present itself as a growing alternative but must navigate carefully to avoid facing similar criticism from creators concerned about generative AI.