One of the best things about Canva is that it's always evolving—constantly adding new features and tweaking the platform to improve the user experience. One of the worst things? Same answer.

I'm a Canva girly through and through, but I know that many of the travel entrepreneurs I work with see it more as a necessary evil for their marketing efforts. When Canva drops a whole list of new features and makes platform changes, I get excited. But I'm also filled with a bit of dread because now I have to learn and adapt to the changes. If that's how I feel, I can only imagine how stressful it is for those who already feel lost on the platform.

Full disclosure: It's been a busy week here at GTN HQ so I haven't really gotten to play with these features yet and can't speak to how well they work. However, as the de facto Canva expert on the team, I wanted to share what's new on the platform.

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The Imagination Era

This year's keynote was titled "The Imagination Era," and Canva made it clear that they have their sights set on content creators and small businesses. Throughout the presentation, there was a heavy emphasis on scaling your business and "closing the loop" on different tasks so everything can live within your Canva account. They also talked about bridging the gap between casual Canva users and professional designers, introducing features that empower users at every skill level to create better content.

Their vision? "A world where every person everywhere is empowered to achieve their goals." Because as they reminded us, "Everything good was once imagined."

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What's New (and What You Actually Need to Know)

Let's break down the biggest announcements and what they mean for you:

Design Tools That Actually Matter

Some quality-of-life improvements that I'm genuinely excited about:

  • Pixel Eraser: Finally! This is one of the smallest additions, but it is something I've wanted for so long! No more strategically cropping and piecing things together or trying to use the background eraser just to be able to erase one tiny spot.
  • Gradient Text: A small but mighty addition for anyone who loves a good text effect.

Video 2.0 and Reel Creation

This is a feature I've been patiently waiting for, and I just KNEW Canva was going to come up with something like this eventually. We are in a video era, and Reels have become a nonnegotiable for content creation. Canva's new Video 2.0 lets you drop in clips and will remix them for you, adding effects and syncing to a beat. If I'm understanding it correctly, it sounds like this will hopefully work in the same way I use CapCut to generate quick and snazzy Reels. I can't wait to play with this one and see how well it works!

Canva Grow: Built-In Ad Management

This is where the "closing the loop" strategy really shows up. With Canva Grow, you can now create and post ads directly through Canva, then get all your tracking data in one place. It even scans your website to help generate ad ideas. For travel entrepreneurs juggling multiple platforms and tools, this could be a game-changer for simplifying your ad workflow.

Expanded Data and Insights

Canva is beefing up their analytics tools, including forms that flow directly into sheets. More data visibility means better decision-making for your marketing, assuming you're someone who actually looks at the data (no judgment if you're not, but you should).

AI Integration That Goes Beyond Basic

Canva has integrated with AI platforms like ChatGPT and Claude to help you generate not just images, but fully formed designs with elements that you can tweak and rework. You can now copy art styles and use "Ask Canva" to get real-time feedback and advice on your designs.

Their tagline: "Designing in Canva is as easy as having a conversation."

The Brand System Overhaul

The expanded Brand Kit now has deeper AI integration and automation. This means maintaining brand consistency across all your content just got easier, especially for those who are growing their team and bringing on ICs or marketing support and need an easy way to share their branding with others.

Email Design Tools

Canva is also expanding into email design, which fits right into that "do everything in one place" philosophy they're pushing. This is another feature I'm curious about, as email design can be tricky and this has the potential to be a huge help for both us at GTN and for our advisors.

The Affinity Acquisition

Last year, Canva acquired Affinity, the professional design software suite that's been a big Adobe competitor. And they're making it free for everyone with a Canva login. No paid Canva account required, but if you do have one, you get access to AI features that connect Affinity with Canva.  

Their tagline? "Creative Freedom, free forever." Subtle, much? Canva’s taking a direct swing at Adobe's subscription model, and I'm here for it.  

Beyond that, they announced that the whole Affinity suite will no longer be in separate applications, but will be combined so that all their professional vector, photo, and layout tools will live in one powerful app. This will allow users to design, edit, and publish, all in one place.

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The Bottom Line

Canva continues to position itself as the all-in-one platform for content creators and small businesses. They want to be where you design, where you manage your brand, where you create ads, where you analyze performance... Basically, where you do everything.  

And one thing that they continue to emphasize at these big releases is that they are really listening to users. They encourage people to submit their "wishes" so they can keep granting them and making the platform easier and more fun to use. They do an amazing job of giving people the freedom to feel creative and capable, no matter their skill set.

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