I Tested Claude Design and Canva AI. Here’s How They Stack up.

For over a decade, Canva has been one of the vital widespread graphic design platforms. Now, Anthropic has a chance to seize a few of that market with AI.

Anthropic introduced its newest Opus 4.7 AI model on April 16, and a day later introduced the launch of Claude Design, a instrument which it stated permits customers to “create polished visible work like designs, prototypes, slides, one-pagers, and extra.”

Designs created by Claude Design could be exported on to Canva, Anthropic stated within the launch.

The brand new Claude function comes because the trade warns of a “SaaSpocalypse,” by which AI threatens the enterprise fashions of software program corporations like Canva, website builder Wix, and administration platforms Workday and Asana.

To higher perceive the SaaSpocalyse fears, I examined how Claude Design and Canva stack up when tasked with designing the identical slide deck.

For this take a look at, I requested Claude Design and Canva’s AI tool to create an improved model of the Images 101 slide deck that I made manually in January.

I used the deck whereas delivering a images workshop for reporters at Enterprise Insider’s Singapore bureau. Let’s simply say my images abilities are higher than my design abilities.

I examined Canva AI first

Canva, like different software program corporations, is embracing AI to fend off competitors from AI. It is rolling out its AI 2.0 function to all customers, turning Canva into an agentic platform that may generate editable designs.

I examined out AI 1.0, then acquired an early trial additionally to see how 2.0 stacks up towards Claude.

First impressions of Canva AI: The touchdown web page resembled different vibe-coding platforms like Lovable, Replit, and Base44, with the slogan, “What’s going to we design right this moment?”

I submitted my immediate, asking for a presentation break up into six sections with quizzes to check understanding, and a darkish minimalist design with blue accents.

Canva then requested me to decide on the viewers kind — informal, skilled, or academic — in addition to the deck’s type and size. And earlier than designing the slides, Canva offered a tough define of what every slide would come with, which I might edit.

I believed that was neat.

The slides have been respectable, however required modifying

AI 1.0 gave me two designs to select from. One was a direct no, with loud components that clashed and made the textual content exhausting to learn. The graphics used have been additionally reasonably simplistic.

The second design was higher, however its textual content containers overlapped, the textual content was misaligned, and it was at occasions minuscule. It additionally did not have as many pictures as I might like. I fed Canva one other immediate asking it to align and standardize the textual content containers, add extra footage, and make it extra participating.

The ultimate product was significantly better than the dangerous deck I made in January, one thing I might undoubtedly use for a refresher workshop.

I repeated the identical take a look at a few days later with AI 2.0. The method was largely unchanged, besides that I might manually change components whereas chatting with the AI instrument — a helpful change from 1.0.

The design from AI 2.0 was a bit boring, so I requested it to regenerate the slide deck with extra photographs and a cleaner aesthetic.

It gave me a warning — “It will use a major quantity of your AI utilization since I will have to regenerate every slide” — however I ended up with a barely extra polished presentation.

I laughed when the AI acquired uninterested in redesigning and advised me the redesign was full, though 4 slides remained unchanged. Once I prompted it to look once more, it hit me with the great outdated, “You are proper, sorry about that!”

It took a few prompts to get it to the place I needed, however I used to be impressed by Canva’s AI technology.

We have been undoubtedly off to a superb begin.

Then I attempted Claude Design

Subsequent, I turned to Claude Design. I had beforehand tried producing a brand of my initials with Opus 4.7, and the design left so much to be desired.

So I used to be not anticipating so much once I requested it to create the images presentation.

To my shock, Claude requested me in-depth follow-up questions earlier than beginning to design. It requested what digicam I’d be utilizing, the talent ranges of contributors — learners, phone-photo skilled, hobbyists — and even the precise shade of blue I needed as an accent colour.

And the deck it generated surpassed my expectations.

For instance, one slide featured a graphic of the “publicity triangle,” which illustrated how ISO, aperture, and shutter pace have an effect on a photograph’s brightness.

Claude mounted errors with none prompting

However what impressed me probably the most about Claude Design was that it anticipated my wants.

Within the first model, some textual content containers overlapped. With out prompting, Claude began figuring out and fixing these issues, appearing as its personal editor while not having any enter from me.

The one drawback I bumped into with Claude Design was once I tried to vary a picture in one of many quiz slides. The query was about photographing a politician at a podium, however the image was of a younger man sitting in entrance of a round window.

I requested Claude to vary it to an image of a politician.

As an alternative, it generated the picture of a farmer. I attempted once more — it gave me an image of the Senate. Third time, a handshake. At that time, I gave up and requested it to revert to the image of the man in entrance of the window.

It gave me some perception into the criticisms of Claude’s Opus 4.7, with customers saying it burns by tokens too shortly and generally provides ridiculous solutions.

Nonetheless, it responded higher to different prompts. For instance, it initially lumped the 5 modifying ideas into one slide, however expanded every tip into its personal slide seamlessly once I requested it to.

Canva’s remaining product was good, however for my part, Claude Design’s was higher and required so much much less prompting on my half.

Last ideas

On the finish of constructing the slide decks, I bear in mind considering to myself, “I am by no means making slides from scratch once more.”

It was an in depth competitors, however Claude Design edged it as a result of it recognized its personal errors and corrected them with out prompting, whereas Canva wanted to be advised what to repair.

One consideration — there’s a distinction within the subscription prices for each platforms. A person subscription to Claude Professional prices $17 a month, and a Professional Max subscription prices $100 a month and permits greater token utilization.

In the meantime, Canva AI is free to be used, for as much as “200 Normal AI makes use of,” per its pricing chart. Canva Professional, which provides “10x extra AI than Canva Free,” prices $18 a month.

And naturally, if you cannot select between the 2, you need to use each collectively.

“Now, when somebody creates an concept or a draft in Claude, they’ll immediately take it into Canva and switch it into one thing actual the place it is absolutely editable, collaborative, and on model,” Canva’s spokesperson stated. “From there, it is simple to refine, adapt throughout totally different codecs, and publish or share it anyplace.”

Anthropic didn’t reply to requests for remark from Enterprise Insider.