Canva Acquires Cavalry and Mango AI

0:00With markets changing and living costs rising, finding a reliable place to grow your money matters now more than ever. In the Wealthfront Cash account, your uninvested cash can earn up to 3.95 % APY. That's a 0.65 % boost over an already high rate for three months, just for being a new client. There are no monthly account fees or minimums, and you get free instant withdrawals to eligible accounts 24-7, so you always have access to your money when you need it. And when you're ready to invest, you can transfer your cash to one of Wealthfront's expert built portfolios in just minutes. More than 1 million people already use Wealthfront to save and build wealth with confidence.

0:36Get started today at Wealthfront.com.

1:14We'll see you next time.

1:25$50 ,000. Cash account offered by Wealthfront Brokerage LLC member FINRA SIPC, not a bank. Today on the podcast, we're talking about a huge acquisition that Canva has just made. They're getting into animations and marketing. This is an exciting area because Canva is something that Jamie and I both use extensively. And I actually, when I was in college, I basically went from being a Photoshop pro to switching and using Canva because A, it was free and B, it was cheaper. And while I was it, it's kind of funny because at school we had access to all of the Adobe suite at the library, but I never wanted to go all the way to the library to access the library computers.

2:02So out of perhaps laziness and being cheap as a student, I basically switched my whole life to Canva and I've never looked back. So anyways, we're going to break down everything happening with AI and Canva today. Jamie, take it away. But first, why don't you tell everyone about the latest in marketing on the AI Hustle School community? Yeah. So if you haven't heard of our AI Hustle School community yet, you need to check it out. The link is below, but each week we release bonus content over there. A variety of topics from AI consulting, AI marketing. Jaden has AI music side hustle where he makes AI generated music and brings in thousands of dollars per month.

2:38And then our most recent one is AI vibe coding. We're kind of leaning heavily into that because that's really what we think is the future. So we're releasing content over there each week and it's really valuable place if you want to learn how to actually make money using AI. So I would love to have you be a member. There is over about 300 members right now, and we have a special price of$19 a month. It will go up in the future, so you can lock that price in today, and we'd love to have you be a member. But let's talk about Canva. I, too, am a heavy Canva user. I used to use Photoshop, but didn't like paying$20 a month for it.

3:15But it turns out now I'm actually paying for a premium version of Canva because I use it so much. So they got me. But Canva, this is really interesting. Their revenue growth, I just looked it up, reached$4 billion at the end of 2025, which is a 36 % increase from the previous year. And that is mostly driven by the recommendation of AI tools such as OpenAI using their tools as reference or to recommend. So they've had a 700 % surge year over year. So amazing. They're blowing up a really, really big company. And honestly, they deserve it. They have a great software. It's easy to use. And yeah, so as these companies are referring Canva more and more, their revenue is just growing and growing.

4:04And I was excited last year when OpenAI actually made a access to Canva. So it'll actually generate, you know, templates and stuff for you over in Canva. So they're actually a connected tool, which is really cool. Have you like my question for you on that? I was just looking at that. I was just looking at that yesterday. Is that something that you've used much? Or do you feel like ChatGPT has a ways to go before they make that useful? Like, do you ever use the Canva integration inside of ChatGPT? That's a great point. I actually don't mostly because I am kind of a snob when it comes to graphic design, as I think you are too, Jaden.

4:45But since being in content creation in that world, I want things to look a certain way. So I could maybe use it as a base for information, like if it could copy text over to Canva, but then I would still make tweaks and stuff. I don't think the AI design is necessarily there yet, but it may be in the future. So yeah, okay. I agree with you. And by the way, if you're watching on YouTube, there's a link in that there should be a link in the show notes to the YouTube video of this if you're watching over on on YouTube. So I'm sharing my screen. But for everyone else, if you just click on the plus button on the chat GPT chat bar, they have like a drop down.

5:21And under the more section, you literally can see like Zillow and Canva, some of these connected apps. And you can add them and literally ask your question right there. And it's going to pull up a kind of a Canva template. But I also think if you add Canva as like a tool that you want to use in your settings, then you can just reference it directly. I think you might even be able to say like at Canva. Yeah, if you say at Canva, then it will also link it. So there's a few different ways to directly link Canva in there. Now, from my personal experience, I've never been able to get it. Like I've got it to make like business cards.

5:53I've got it to make like flyers, different things. I've never been able to get it to be perfect or very incredible or impressive as far as the templates go. It does make templates and basically it designs a unique template and then it will, you click a link and it opens it in Canva so you can go edit the template. And it is useful, but it's never, in my opinion, I just literally go to Canva, search on Canva for like recently I listed my house for sale. And so I needed like a real estate, you know, flyer made for it basically. And so I just search for real estate, put all my data into someone else's pre-made template and just printed that and was happy.

6:26And it took me like two seconds and it looked professional. And obviously a professional graphic designer or someone that's great at this kind of design made it. And that worked a lot better for me. So like, I don't know, no shade there. But you did bring up a great point, Jamie, which is that the extra visibility that ChatGPT's direct integration has had, I think really actually has boosted perhaps Canva more than anything, because it's like a very, it's like a giant billboard. Every time you click and see more, you can see all of kind of the, all of kind of the apps that integrate. And there's a huge banner if you're on ChatGPT at the very top of the app section.

7:00And one of the very first like, you know, products that are being featured is Canva. So I think, I literally think ChatGPT is driving a ton of traffic to Canva. Now, there's a lot of different apps in their featured ones. I'll give you just a list for a second so you know who's getting linked in there. We have Photoshop, AllTrails, Booking.com, Expedia, Instacart, OpenTable, Spotify, TripAdvisor, Airtable, Apple Music, Figma, Lovable, Replit, Target, Zillow, like a ton of big ones. Those are the featured ones, though, they have. But Canva still is the giant banner at the top, and I'm still not finding it as that useful of an integration.

7:36So anyways, it's kind of interesting. I hope they get better there. Regardless, though, Canva is making big moves in the space. And like I mentioned at the beginning of the episode, they've actually had a couple different acquisitions that I think are going to help them continue to basically capture this momentum and grow. So I'm really impressed with Canva. And I do love them as a tool. The first one that they acquired was a company called Cavalry. They work on animation. They also acquired a company called Mango AI, which works on improving ad performance. Now, a couple interesting things here for both of them.

8:08First of all, Cavalry, it's based in the UK, but they work on 2D motion animation. If you know anything about Canva, you know that But Canva has a massive asset library on their platform where essentially they allow you to, if you have premium, you can go and get different like thumbnails, images. I used to go to, I'm curious what your situation is with this, Jamie, because I know you're also big into graphic design. We both do a lot of stuff with this. I used to go to a whole bunch of different like open source or like, you know, free kind of like logo or icon websites, image websites. and I find myself more and more just using the search right built into Canva so I don't have to download things off another website and upload it.

8:52I feel like it may be perhaps a little limited, maybe they have less options, but I can usually find something I need and it's quicker. Do you still find yourself going to third-party sources for graphics? No, I don't. I think, you know, and specifically speaking to the motion animation, I've used that in the past where if you have like a logo that you want to throw on, let's say, a quick video clip, you want to have some motion to it, you can just click and there's like a bunch of different animations. Now, some of them are cheesy, but basically you put some motion to that logo and it's a little bit more engaging, a little more memorable and more, you know, high end looking.

9:29So there's some really great tools there. Plus, I think, you know, I think based on these two acquisitions, they're really going going to try to lean into marketers using this to fully create ads within Canva that they can then go post on Facebook or TikTok or whatever. I think that's kind of what they're going for, don't you think? 100%. Yeah. The motion animation stuff is really cool. I've done a lot with that in Canva. And I think there's definitely a long way to go there if they want to really compete with like Adobe After Effects and maybe some of these like crazy studios, even in a simple way.

10:02So I think that's a really good move for them. This is what they said specifically about this. They said, by bringing cavalry alongside Affinity, we're closing that motion editing gap and unlocking a competitive professional suite spanning photo vector layout and now motion editing. Together, these tools form the foundation of a full stack creative operating system for professional work while preserving the depth and control of professional creative or that professional creatives rely on whatever. Okay, so I mean, basically, you can see their strategy here is they didn't really have motion graphics locked in and dialed in as a product.

10:39So they're going and acquiring this company. And I think it might be one of the last pieces to Canva. But the thing that's cool about this to me is because like we talked about at the beginning of the episode, Canva is so directly and closely tied into ChatGPT. What does that mean? Pulling a company like this into Canva means that pretty soon, you're going to actually be able to use ChatGPT to create motion graphic editing, which come on guys that is like arguably way cooler than saying okay canva make me a business card and it like or you know chat gpt use canva to make me a business card and then it kind of like generates some sort of like basic business card it's like okay chat gpt use canva to make a motion graphic of this my logo i've uploaded with like flying things in the background that has the text moving like this like that is so that'll be so freaking cool i'm excited for that and then my final point is why would you do this versus just telling chat gpt to like hey make me a business card for example the beauty of the canva obviously i recently had a um what was it like a landscaper or no no it was a it was a plumber a plumber that came and fixed a broken a leaking toilet on the second floor of a renter's house the house that i rent out and unfortunately the toilet on the second story leaked filled flooded this roof had to cut a hole in it fix it it was a nightmare um and it was funny because after the plumber sent me his business card uh from helping with that the business card i could tell was obviously generated by chat gpt just because you chat gpt kind of has that one font that they use by default if you don't tell it to switch the font and so and also kind of like a brown kind of color scheme so i knew like it was chat gpt generated but what was funny is when i looked at like the fine print i think in his website instead of saying dot com it said dot con and he just hadn't like realized that and i'm like hey love love your like business card by the way like you're gonna want to go like tell chat to fix that last letter he's like oh thanks dude i didn't even notice anyways so why do you use canva instead of just chat to straight shot shoot things is because they sometimes will mess up mess up on one letter of the text or one tiny little element if it's in canva you could just type it out and you can actually manually edit it without yelling at chat gpt to go fix these little tweaks so that's why you want canva and I'm super stoked to have motion graphics built into ChatGPT now.

12:50Absolutely. And then one last thing is, you know, along with the Canva growing its business 36 % due to OpenAI and ChatGPT recommending it. That's why you need to check out our school community because we talk about how you can actually do this for your own business. Ranking in LLMs is kind of the new big thing. SEO is kind of changing a lot due to the way people are searching. So you're going to want to check that out. And thanks for listening, guys. And we'll see you next time. With markets changing and living costs rising, finding a reliable place to grow your money matters now more than ever.

13:21In the Wealthfront Cash account, your uninvested cash can earn up to 3.95 % APY. That's a 0.65 % boost over an already high rate for three months, just for being a new client. There are no monthly account fees or minimums, and you get free instant withdrawals to eligible accounts 24-7, so you always have access to your money when you need it. And when you're ready to invest, you can transfer your cash to one of Wealthfront's expert-built portfolios in just minutes. More than 1 million people already use Wealthfront to save and build wealth with confidence. Get started today at Wealthfront.com.

14:14registered investment advisor. This podcast is sponsored by IQ Bar. I've got good news and bad news. Here's the bad news. Most protein bars are packed with sugar and unpronounceable ingredients. The good news, there's a better option. I'm Will and I created IQ Bar plant protein bars to empower doers like you with clean, delicious, low sugar brain and body fuel. IQ Bars are packed with 12 grams of protein, brain nutrients like magnesium and lion's mane and zero weird stuff. And right now, you can get 20 % off all IQ Bar products, plus free shipping. Try our delicious IQ Bar sampler pack with 7 plant protein bars, 4 hydration mixes, and 4 enhanced coffee sticks.

14:56Clean ingredients, amazing taste, and you'll love how you feel. Refuel smarter, hydrate harder, caffeinate larger with IQ Bar. Go to eatiqbar.com and enter code BAR20 to get 20 % off all IQ Bar products, plus free shipping. Again, go to eatiqbar.com and enter code BAR20.