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Canva Developer Program _ Start Building Apps for Canva
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Jan 14, 2024
This video introduces the Canva Developer Program, encouraging viewers to start building apps for Canva. It likely provides information on how developers can participate in the program, showcasing the opportunities and tools available for creating applications that integrate with the Canva platform. The video aims to inspire developers to explore and contribute to the Canva ecosystem by building innovative apps.
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What I'm going to show you is going to change the way we all use Canva
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And you probably don't realize it yet because there hasn't been that much noise about it
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But this is going to massively change the way we use Canva
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Canva is opening up its ecosystem to app developers and officially launching the Canva for Developers program
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This means that from now on, anybody can build and launch an app that will run on Canva with the potential to reach its
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millions of users. Now this is huge and it's going to have massive consequences. Now in
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this video I'm going to guide you through all of the important announcements that
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were made at Canva extend the event that Canva held a few weeks ago for developers
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So whether you are a developer looking to launch your first app within the Canva
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ecosystem or a simple Canva user a Canva lover who wants to know where the company
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is heading, I suggest you watch this video until the end. The event started in traditional Canva fashion with Melancliffe introducing the event
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and welcoming all of the developers they had invited to this event
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Hello, everyone! And a very warm welcome to today! We are incredibly excited to welcome you to our first ever developer event, Canva Extend
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Melanie then continued by clarifying what the Canva Extend event was. As the name of today's event suggests, we're here
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to talk about extending the opportunities and the possibilities of Canva to developers around the world
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So they called it Canva Extend because Canva wants to extend the field of what we can do with Canva
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by opening up their ecosystem to developers around the world. Now let's discover how they intend to
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do that. Today we have four incredibly exciting announcements. The very first which I'm excited
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to be unveiling to you all right here right now. I'm very pleased to announce, can I get a drum roll
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The Canva Developers Program. Cliff then explained what the Canva Developers program is at its core
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So whether you're wanting to create a new idea from scratch or to connect your brand
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to a whole new audience or looking to massively accelerate your reach. Canva's developer program
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brings new opportunities to put your apps into the hands of millions
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So the opportunity for developers and apps that Cliff mentions is to have a chance to reach a
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these millions of users. Now isn't that the dream of any SaaS company? I mean the
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opportunity to reach millions of users? But exactly how many millions guys? In 2015
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we hit 1 million monthly active users and then 2018 we hit 10 million monthly active
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users and then fast forward to October last year we hit 100 million monthly active users
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and today not that long after we We just hit 135 really monthly activities
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Yeah, that's indeed a pretty juicy market to tap into for these apps and developers
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Over the next few hours, we're incredibly excited to share more about our vision for creating
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the world's most pluggable platform. The world's most plugable platform. All right, now that's an ambitious goal, particularly when we consider other very plug-able platforms
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like the Apple I Store or all of the Chrome extensions. Or more recently, all of these chat GPT plugins
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So ambitious, yes, but I love the idea. This would mean that any developer could now start building Canva apps
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bringing new functionalities to the platform, allowing us Canva users to be able to do a lot of other cool stuff with Canva
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I really like that idea. In fact, this is not a new idea
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Canva has been collaborating with hand-picked apps and integrations for the last few years or so
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All the apps that you can find under the app section of the Canva homepage or even within the Canva editor
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are the fruit of these early collaborations and experiments that Canva has been conducting with a select
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group of brands and developers. And some of these collaborations were so successful that Canva eventually
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decided to acquire the apps. This happened with companies like Collido, the makers of background
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remover but also flourish who are behind the data visualizations in Canva and also smart
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mock-ups the mock-up app and frankly I wouldn't be surprised to see more of these
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acquisitions of the best apps that will be created in Canva in the near future So there is a famous quote that I really like and I think is really relevant to this situation If you want to go fast go alone but if you want to go far go together
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And that's what we're really planning to do with the Canva Developer Program. Building together really seems to be the motto
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of the Canva Developers Program. By opening up their ecosystem and allowing anyone
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to build on top of their platform, Canva is going to grow faster
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Developers from the community are going to start building new design tools, new workflow integrations, new AI-powered features that are going to be amazing
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and new apps. This is very exciting. And this is also, in my opinion, a genius moved by Canva
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And we can expect a massive amount of new functionalities, integrations, apps, features to come to the platform in the month to come
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This is a win, win, win, win, win. Four winners. It's a win for Canva that will see its platform develops super fast
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This is great for developers who will put their name out there, create new products, reach millions of users and make some money
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This is great for all of us, Canva users, as we will benefit from a ton of new features
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And this is great for us, legend and I at Tim Rondi, because new features means new tutorials to be created, new content to talk about
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so that we can teach you guys how to use all of these new features
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I kind of like where this is going. we had Cameron Adams, Canva's third co-founder and chief product officer
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Good-day San Francisco, how you doing? And Cam quickly introduced another person to the stage who is going to play
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or should I stay who is already playing, a crucial role in how Canva is building its app marketplace
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And that is the perfect segue for me to bring someone special to the stage who can help me show you
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how we're going to build the next generation of creative tools at Canva
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Please welcome Anwar, our head of ecosystem at Canva. Thanks, Cam. Cam
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So Cam and Anwar starting talking about some of the early partnership that Canva made with some third-party apps
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like Calido, the team behind Remove.BG. Canva quickly realized the potential of that feature
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being able to remove the background of any photo in just one click
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And they started working hand in hand with. Kaleido. They progressively integrated that app into Canva, the background remover. They turned it into a feature and they eventually went on acquiring Kaleido
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So this feature that started as a partnership eventually turned out to be one of the most loved Canva feature and one that made a lot of money to Canva
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So I guess this early experience really showed Canva the power of partnerships when it comes to building features
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Our partnership with Kaleido showed us that when we have the right partners to work
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with, we can deliver so much value for our millions of Canva users
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In this case, we were able to take this big time-consuming task off of people's to-do lists
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And it got us thinking about how to further our community by partnering with the right people
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not just to eliminate painful design tasks, but also to make the design experience richer
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And we could do this because our community wanted these things as well. So it seems Canva wants to be more reactive to what the community wants
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And when they talk about the community, they mean us. the Canva users
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With that app marketplace that Canva is building, we can expect to see new features that will come and fill up the gaps in Canva
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The painful things that are missing, and that would be great to have
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I'm all up for that. Canva developers provides unprecedented access to build on top of Canva
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It's a community of developers from all walks of life, from in-house developers at large tech companies
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to innovators working on AI, side hustlers and student, college students, all working to extend the creativity of 135 million designers
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Thank you, Anwar, for explaining what the Canva Developers Program is. Now, that was the first of the four big announcement that Melanie Perkins mentioned at the beginning of the event
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Now, let's see what the second one was all about. We believe this so strongly that alongside the launch of Canva developers today
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we're also announcing, drumroll please, a $50 million dollar Canva Developers Innovation Fund
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Cameron went on to explain that the $50 million of the innovation fund will go to help developers build, grow and market their apps
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And on top of these monetary grants Canva will also support the developers from the community with expert guidance And with this fund Canva also wants to support and empower actors that don always have access to the resources they need
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or simply have less opportunities in the market. The best magic happens when we champion diversity and inclusivity
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So one of the goals of the fund is to seek out developers who might be underrepresented in the global market
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and provide them with what they need to bring their amazing ideas to life
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There is so much talent out there, and we want to open up more opportunities for those who need them
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Now, the rest of the presentation and the two remaining big announcements
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were a little bit more technical. And it was somehow technical because Martin and Meredith
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from Canva went on explaining the different tools that Canva will put into the hands of the developers
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to build on their platform. For the last 18 months, we've been working away
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on a new set of APIs to help thousands of developers build apps on Canva
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And now, finally, I'm thrilled to officially announce the launch of Canva Apps SDK
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So there you go. This is our third big announcement, the Canva Apps SDK
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And SDK, if you're like me and don't know a thing about developing and coding
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stands for Software Development Kit. And it is essentially a set of tools and accesses for developers
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to be able to build and launch apps on Canva. The software development kit includes a simple tutorial
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powerful APIs, code examples, and a UI kit to help you get your app off the ground easier
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Now, pay attention, folks. For all of you who want to access these tools, I will leave a link
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in the description of the video to the Canva Developer's Landing page. This is where it all starts
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You need to have access to this landing page to just apply for the program. And if you are watching
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this video on a laptop or a computer, you can also use the QR code that should be popping up
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on your screen right now to access that same landing page with all of the information
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From there, you will be able to learn more about the program, but also download the app's
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SDK, access the developers' community, and get all the support you need to build your app on Canva
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So again, you will find that link in the description of the video. This is your entry point to the program
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Then Canva give us a taste of some of the things developers will be able to build with the
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app's SDK. It ranges from uploading media to a user's media library with the asset API
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This means that your app can upload assets such as images or video to the Canva back end
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Then users can access these assets in the Canva editor via the uploads tab and the app can also add
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the assets to the user's design. Some examples of existing apps that already exist in
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Canva that use this asset API include stock photo libraries like Pixabay or P
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Pexels, but also digital asset management tools like brand folder or generative AI apps such as the
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text to image app. Something else you can do is to create powerful new design tools with the design
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API. Now this will allow you to add new content to a design or read and edit what's already there
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We're talking about creating images, creating shapes, creating text, creating videos, embedding
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rich media or even grouping elements. Developers building on Canva will be able to
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send all sorts of requests to third-party servers. This will allow you to do things like embedding
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webpages to your Canva documents, fetching data from another apps API, or offloading tasks to
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a server such as machine learning or image processing tasks. Canva will also let you authenticate
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to your app. So this means that apps can require users to authenticate with a third-party platform
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to access specific content or features within that specific app. So let's use an example like
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the issue app in Canva that already exist, we've already talked about this
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Well, Canva lets you sign up to your issue account straight from the object panel
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And this gives you access to all of the content you have already created with issue
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Now, this particular point should be very interesting for developers because it allows them to monetize by offering features or content to paying customers
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So if we come back to our issue example, if we have a paid issue account
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we will be able to use all of the paid features or all of the paid content on issue directly from our Canva account as well
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The Canva APIs will also let you import data from different sources
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This means that users can import data from a number of data sources, such as CSV files
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Some existing features that already use these types of APIs are the bulk create feature in Canva where you can connect your data to either a spreadsheet or enter them manually or the charts that have been in Canva
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for a very long time already. So obviously, this is going to be super useful
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to leverage existing data sets you might already have access to. It will save you hours of effort by simply plugging
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in your data set to Canva instead of manually having to copy it all
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And last but not least, your app can let users export and publish their designs, obviously
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Now, this last functionality will let users export their Canva project in a variety of formats such as images, videos, or PDFs
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So that is, in a nutshell, all of the different tools that developers have at their fingertips
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to create the next big app, to create the next useful integration on Canva
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And this is where I really wish I knew how to code, because Diana and I have about a thousand of Canva apps idea
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that would make our live as a Canva user easier. But anyway, I really look forward to seeing all of these new apps and
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functionalities come to life. And talking about upcoming cool apps. And we have to mention Sound Draw, the first audio generation app in Canva
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also powered by AI. SoundRow allows you to create custom audio for any genre or mood
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to help you bring your presentations and videos to life. There's also PeopleMaker by Visual and Image Generation app
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that helps you create realistic photos of people, and voice by Play.hT, a text-to-speech app that generates voiceovers for your designs
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These apps and more from HeyGen, Patent AI and others are inactive development and launching very soon
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Canva really wants to get into the AI race, and they are making the smart move to bet on their developers' community
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to create the next magical features powered by AI that we will all love in Canva
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And you know us, you know, we are going to do what we do. You know, we are going to create a ton of detailed tutorials
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to teach you guys how to use all of these new apps that the community is going to come up with
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So to make sure you don't miss any of that, now it would be a great time to subscribe to our channel
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Okay, now on to the fourth and last announcement that was made at Canva Extend
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Today we're launching a second set of developer APIs. Can we get a drum roll please
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The Canva Connect APIs. The Canva Connect APIs will let you connect any app to Canva with ease
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This means you will be able to create connections to sync assets, designs, comments and more
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across different platforms. Now Canva has already run some experiments and successfully connected their platform to other
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platforms like Slack and Microsoft Teams. Now this results in users receiving notifications related to their Canva designs straight into Slack
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For example, when somebody leaves a comment on one of your Canva design
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you will receive a Slack notification. So the Connect APIs will allow you to do all sorts of things like that
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to integrate Canva with the other apps you use in your everyday workflow
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Now, these Connect APIs are still under development, but you can get on the wait list via this button right here
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Again, there will be a link to this landing page in the description
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It's the same landing page. There's only going to be one link. Just scroll a bit down
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this page to find this particular section. So there you have it
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We've introduced two new ways to plug into Canva. The Apps SDK helps you make amazing apps in Canva
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and the Connect APIs let you connect to Canva from anywhere else
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The Connect APIs will launch later this year, and we'll be sharing more details about the innovation fund
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in the same timeframe. But the Canva Apps SDK is ready for you to jump in
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and start building today. heard him guys you can start building your app on Canva today and this is where I'm
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going to wrap up this video now if you are a developer and wants to get in touch with
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us to tap into our Canva expertise or knowledge at the end of the day both
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Dianai and I are Canva verified experts or simply if you want to
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brainstorm ideas about what have to develop on Canva or simply if you want
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our opinion or if you want us to help you brainstorm some ideas or
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of apps that would be valuable for the Canva community, talking about features or integrations
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that people or Canva users would love, don't hesitate to reach out with us
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I will leave an email in the description of this video. And we would love to hear from you
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And this is it, guys. Thank you for watching this video until the end. I'm gonna leave you with this other video right here
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that I think you should watch next
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