On Friday, Canva unveiled a new visual language model designed to power its AI-driven design tools. Known as “Canva Brush,” the model enables users to edit and refine existing designs within the Canva platform while preserving their original elements. According to the company, the model responds to natural language instructions and can modify a wide range of content—from a single line of text to an entire presentation. Currently, Canva Brush is available exclusively to Canva Pro subscribers for use within supported design-editing features.
Canva Brush Visual Language Model
In a blog post, the company stated that Canva Brush was developed by its in-house research team. Unlike other tools that focus primarily on generating new images, Canva Brush can interpret the structure of an existing design, allowing for specific modifications while keeping other elements intact.
Canva Brush is capable of editing everything from individual lines of text to multiple slides within a presentation. The company notes that the software is designed to handle complex design tasks that require consistency across pages—ensuring that fonts, colors, spacing, images, and layouts remain uniform throughout.
As an example, Canva notes that a user could ask Canva Brush to create a three-page brochure for a bakery, complete with Art Nouveau-style visuals and backgrounds. The model can plan the narrative structure across the pages, generate and lay out text, select images, and ensure a consistent visual style throughout.
The visual language model reportedly employs an agent-based workflow: it writes and executes code to adjust design elements, then reviews the generated pages to inform further refinements. Canva states that all elements created remain fully editable, allowing users to manually modify text, images, colors, and layouts at any time.
In terms of performance, Canva Brush is said to be up to 69% faster for general design editing tasks and 46% more cost-effective per editing task compared to the company’s previous design tools. Internal testing by the company indicates that Brush matches or outperforms earlier versions across most editing tasks—excelling particularly when it comes to redesigning content and adapting it for different formats.
Starting today, Canva Pro users can utilize “Canva Brush” within Canva AI to perform supported design edits. Users can open an existing design in the editor, or attach or link a design within Canva AI. They can then select “Brush” from the Canva AI drop-down menu to use this model for editing.