Canva announced its intent to acquire MagicBrief, an Australian AI-powered creative intelligence platform used by brands, marketers, and agencies to analyse and inform creative development.
The platform’s announcement, made overnight at the Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity, marks a major expansion for Canva that aims to bring data, insights, and design together in a unified and collaborative workflow.
The acquisition is set to add a new layer of creative intelligence to Canva’s Visual Suite, embedding real-time performance insights directly into the design process to help teams create more effective content.
“We’ve spent the last decade empowering millions of teams to create impactful and engaging visual content,” Cliff Obrecht, Co-Founder and COO of Canva, said.
“Now, with MagicBrief joining Canva, we’re entering the next frontier by powering the entire content and marketing workflow, from ideation and creation to deployment, measurement, and now analysis and optimisation.”
“In today’s visual economy, winning brands are those that know exactly what creative works, where it works, and why. By combining MagicBrief’s AI-powered insights with Canva’s Visual Suite, we’re giving every team the tools to not just create great content, but drive stronger results.“
The Sydney MagicBrief team
MagicBrief, founded in 2022, was created to performance data and insights into creative iteration and improvement that help brands understand how their visual assets can engage, perform, and scale.
MagicBrief’s suite of tools makes it easier for marketers to unlock, understand, and respond to the content strategies, formats, and messages that perform best through AI-powered scoring, competitor recommendations, and intelligent brief generation for creatives.
The platform has analysed more than $6 billion in ad spend and is trusted by brands and performance marketing teams including Fenty Beauty, Koala, and Linktree since its launch.
The acquisition will be brought into Canva to help teams create content that’s not only engaging and on brand, but continuously informed and improved by real-time performance data.
“We started MagicBrief to give creative teams smarter tools to move faster and make better work. Joining Canva takes that vision to the next level – helping us reach more marketers and turn great ideas into high performing creative,” said George Howes, Co-Founder and CEO of MagicBrief.
The acquisition also represents a significant step in Canva’s push into the enterprise and marketing space, following rapid adoption of its Visual Suite by teams around the world.
Canva has become the platform of choice for teams seeking to create visual content at scale with more than 240 million monthly users and US$3 billion in annualised revenue.
MagicBrief’s capabilities will deepen Canva’s offering for marketing and creative teams, enabling real-time content insights, faster iteration cycles, and measurable impact across campaigns.
In the near term, MagicBrief will continue operating independently, while its technology and team integrate into Canva’s core product.
Top image: Cliff Obrecht and George Howes