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Is Microsoft taking on Canva? Find out in just a few moments, but before we get there
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feel free to subscribe to my YouTube channel where each week I'll be uploading new videos
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on a variety of different subjects. So yesterday, Microsoft announced the upcoming launch of a new program called Microsoft Designer. The company touts that Designer will let
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anyone design beautiful content like social media posts, invitations, brochures, and other types of
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media. Does that sound familiar? Because to me, Microsoft Designer sounds a lot like Canva
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the Australian design company who last month unveiled the new Canva Visual Work Suite
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a suite that includes the upcoming release of Canva Docs, a design slash word processing program
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similar to Microsoft Word. In releasing their new Visual Work Suite, Canva is hoping to break
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into the enterprise business industry, an area that Microsoft has dominated with over 1 million
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customers worldwide. And it makes sense too, because Canva excels in design, media creation
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and ease of use, all areas where Microsoft lacks. Canva appeals to creators of all ability levels
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and Microsoft historically hasn't. Around the heels of the Microsoft Designer announcement
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it would appear that the new program is a direct competitor to Canva, an attempt to cut off Canva's
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desire to expand into enterprise by offering similar features, introduce new technology
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and establishing its brand as a viable option for media creation. If you go to Microsoft's
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newest Create module, you can view some of the templates for social graphics. As you can see
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this looks very similar to the templates available in Canva or Adobe Express, but Designer will let
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you do more than customize templates. What apparently sets it apart from those other
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platforms is its attempt to integrate artificial intelligence, or AI, to help create designs
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automatically. Designer is integrated with features from a program called DALI, which is an
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image generator that creates synthetic images from text or other photos. So not only can you create
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your own photos by typing a description, but the artificial intelligence that's built in from DALI
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too should help you create your design. The video on the current Designer website demonstrates how
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the interface might look. Like Canva, the main takeaway seems to be that you can create designs
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quickly, easily, and efficiently through using AI. And if you pause the video at a few places
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you'll notice that the interface even looks like Canva. So what we're all wondering is
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will Microsoft Designer be enough to fend off Canva's expansion into enterprise
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And we'll find out over the next few weeks. My thoughts? If you look at the products in
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isolation, I think it's going to be a stretch to believe that Designer will be as robust as Canva
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So I really don't see consumers or organizations that already use Canva
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abandon the service to start using Microsoft Designer. But I also think there's a possibility
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that Designer might do a good enough job to meet those design and media creation needs
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of current Microsoft customers. So an IT staff that already subscribes to Microsoft
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might not feel that they need to purchase an additional service like Canva or Adobe Express
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for their organization. And it sounds like that may be the whole plan by Microsoft
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We'll know more once Designer is publicly available, but it should be interesting to
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see how this battle between Microsoft and Canva over the design space plays out in the future
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So what do you think? Do you think that Microsoft Designer will overtake Canva
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Go ahead and share your thoughts in the comment section below. Transcribed by https://otter.ai
