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Canva added two new artificial intelligence (AI) features to its visual communications platform on Thursday. While these are backend features that the user would not see on the frontend, they considerably boost the platform integration capabilities. The first new feature is Canva's deep research connection for ChatGPT. This enables OpenAI's chatbot to answer questions regarding the user's Canva projects. The second feature is an open Model Context Protocol server, which allows AI helpers and chatbots to connect to Canva and conduct a variety of operations.
Canva adds new integration-based AI features
In a news statement, the visual communication platform described the two new functions. Canva claims to be the first design platform to directly integrate with ChatGPT, and the deep research connection enables the OpenAI chatbot to interact with Canva and answer user questions about their files and projects.
According to Canva, this capability will prevent users from having to jump between applications and manually upload their creations to ChatGPT in order to receive AI input. The functionality will only operate if the chatbot's Deep Research mode is enabled.
Interestingly, once connected, ChatGPT can grasp the context of the user's inquiries. For example, a user may say, "Summarise our Q1 campaign strategy," and the chatbot would search the user's Canva data for the appropriate deck and deliver a summary of it. Deep Research is available to ChatGPT users at all tiers, thus users do not need to acquire a membership.
The visual communications platform has also included an open MCP server, allowing third-party chatbots to connect to the Canva platform. Anthropic developed MCP as a standardized approach for AI systems to communicate with external data centers. Users may use this to create design projects and decks, resize files, import and export materials, and more while speaking with their preferred AI chatbot.
For example, if a user tells Gemini to "Generate a pitch deck based on this chat," the Google chatbot will create a fresh Canva presentation within the chat interface. While the server was released on Thursday, the firm claims MCP connections with Claude, ChatGPT, Salesforce, and others will be available shortly. No date for the integration was specified.
