Canva paused its AI 2.0 rollout. Running it cost more than planned.
Canva paused the rollout of Canva AI 2.0, launched in April, after inference costs ran past what the company had planned for, diginomica reported.
Canva has around 250 million users and says 75 million of them have used its AI tools. People on the new version used AI three times as heavily as the rest. diginomica describes the result as a vicious cycle of increasing cost.
Cameron Adams, Canva co-founder and chief product officer, said: "The demand exploded before the economics were ready."
The company spent four months testing different models and task types, as well as where compute ran. It reports a 90% cut in cost per task with the experience intact. That made the rollout affordable enough to reach free users.
Canva downgraded its revenue growth guidance from 30% to 20% in an August update. It ended 2025 with $4 billion in annual recurring revenue at a $42 billion valuation, and diginomica reports secondary share sales at a 29% discount.
What is the fully loaded cost per completed task of your own AI features, and who reviews it monthly?
Sources
For your next steering committee
- 1Ask for the approved budget and the current forecast on the same scope, side by side.
- 2Ask which costs sit outside the programme budget today: internal staff, data migration, parallel running.
- 3Ask who may approve the next increase, and at what amount the programme goes back to the board.
Issue 01 of the ERP LEADERS brief puts a timeline, the three-number review and six questions on one page. Read issue 01
Welcome back. · Issue 01