Canva has spent years proving that it can do something many high-growth startups struggle to achieve: grow rapidly while making money. Then came generative AI. The design-software company cut its expected revenue growth rate by a third to 20% after the unexpectedly high cost of delivering AI features prompted it to slow its rollout. Canva CEO and co-founder Melanie Perkins told Fortune users’ demand for new AI features “significantly exceeded” the company’s expectations, “This validated the demand, but also showed us we needed to reduce the cost of completing an AI task to support a broad rollout,” Perkins said over email. “Rather than broadly rolling out a product before the underlying economics were ready, we decided to slow the rollout while we rebuilt the architecture, reduced unit costs and strengthened the business model.” The cost problem lands at a pivotal moment for Canva because AI is central to its effort to become a broader workplace-software platform. Perkins previously told Fortune that the AI market was too fragmented, and Canva has since added tools including Canva Code as it seeks to expand beyond design into enterprise workflows. Read more [paywall removed for Redditors]: https://fortune.com/2026/08/12/canva-startup-growth-ai-costs-revenue-forecast-by-third/ submitted by /u/fortune
Originally posted by u/fortune on r/ArtificialInteligence