StartupsNov 3, 2026, 8:28 AM UTC·2 min read

Canva expands OpenAI deal days after launching Brush AI model

Canva has widened access to OpenAI's GPT-6 Astra and GPT-5.6 and will work on cutting running costs, days after releasing its in-house Brush editing model.

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Canva has expanded its partnership with OpenAI, gaining broader access to GPT-6 Astra and GPT-5.6 models. The two companies will work on making the models more economical to run, though no savings or costs were disclosed.

The move comes just days after the design company released Brush, its second in-house AI model. OpenAI already powers features such as Canva Code, which lets users build interactive designs, websites and apps by describing what they want.

Why costs are the issue

The rising cost of AI has forced Canva to rethink how it deploys the technology. In August, cofounder and CEO Melanie Perkins said the company was "relying too heavily on frontier models". Canva cut its revenue growth forecast from 30% to 20%, saying the reliance had slowed the rollout of new AI features while its own technology and pricing caught up with demand.

Brush is part of that strategy. It edits existing designs, so a user can change headlines in a presentation without the AI recreating the slides. Canva's researchers adapted an existing open-weights model and trained it further on design tasks. Available to Canva Pro subscribers, Brush is up to 69% faster than the previous design agent and 46% cheaper per edit. It follows Craft, an image-generation model announced last month.

A four-year relationship

Head of AI product Danny Wu said the collaboration with OpenAI began four years ago with GPT-3 powering Magic Write, and that Canva is now expanding staff use of ChatGPT and Codex. "Latest models like GPT-6 Astra have transformed how we achieve our own goals as a team," he said. In one internal test, Astra navigated more than 80 million lines of Canva's code and wrote and analysed more than 1,000 queries against its data warehouse.

Canva is also among the five most-installed apps in ChatGPT, which OpenAI says has brought millions of people to its products.

Separately, Capital Brief reported job cuts in Canva's finance division in January, with 32 roles made redundant, and cited employees who expect another round of redundancies or a hiring freeze this month. Canva declined to comment on the speculation.