# Canva says small models beat slot-machine design

_Canva built Craft to plan layouts first, edit structually, then render pixels for faster iteration._

**Published:** 2026-11-12
**Source:** https://www.startuphub.ai/ai-news/artificial-intelligence/2026/canva-says-small-models-beat-slot-machine-design

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Before Magic Layers, flat image tools forced designers to reroll a whole picture to move one object.

Stefano Corazza, head of AI research at Canva, told [The TWIML AI Podcast with Sam Charrington](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=heE80uxOmus) that [Craft](https://www.startuphub.ai/startups/craft) plans a scene graph before rendering pixels.

  
    

![Canva Is Tackling AI Design’s Most Frustrating Problem - TWIML](https://img.youtube.com/vi/heE80uxOmus/maxresdefault.jpg)

    
      
        
      
    
  
  Canva Is Tackling AI Design’s Most Frustrating Problem, TWIML

Corazza said AI will reach "70%, 80%, they are will never get to 100%," so Canva built for fast human iteration.

Corazza said Canva runs about 100 AI models in production as of the interview and claims Craft is 40 times cheaper than frontier design models.

Canva says [Canva Craft](https://www.canva.com/ai-research/craft-api/) is available to all Canva users today with accurate text rendering.

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Original analysis from [startuphub.ai](https://www.startuphub.ai), the #1 AI startup directory.

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