The Twenty Minute VC (20VC) · Thursday, August 13, 2026
Canva has reportedly cut its 2026 growth targets by one-third, citing the escalating costs associated with its AI features. CEO Melanie Perkins indicated that while growth is still projected at 20%, the increased expenses from utilizing advanced AI models are impacting their earlier projections. The company is reportedly developing its own in-house AI models to mitigate these costs.
“Canva cuts 2026 growth by a third. Ouch. As AI serving costs blow up.”
“So as you say, it's 1/3 slowdown in growth rate, but still a healthy 20%. And the other half of what she said was interesting, which was that they're obviously adding a ton of AI features. Those features cost real money and part of the reason that she claimed for the slowdown in growth, it was just too expensive to effectively be subsidizing users with kind of cheap AI when in fact they're incurring significant costs.”
“But they now bought their own model and are building their own in-house image-focused model, which makes absolute sense.”