Google’s answer to Canva is an AI tool where you prompt instead of design

Google is entering the creative design market with a new image creation and editing tool called Google Pics, which will become a part of its Google Workspace suite for business customers and premium Google AI subscribers.

The company says the product, which is powered by Google’s Nano Banana image generation model, will roll out over the coming weeks to most Workspace customers and those who pay for Google AI Pro or Ultra.

Similar to popular design tools like Adobe Express and Canva, Google’s new product is meant to be used for the sort of everyday design tasks you might come across at work and sometimes in your personal life. For instance, you could use Google Pics to create a poster, social media posts, and other visuals and illustrations.

But unlike Canva, where artists, illustrators, and photographers can publish templates, graphics, photos, and other art to a marketplace where they earn royalties, Google Pics is about creating things based on AI, which was trained on artists’ work.

And unlike Adobe Express, a tool creators often use to make that work in the first place, Google Pics is a tool where you prompt to create, not where you design something new from scratch.

The app also includes other editing tools, like those to isolate and transform objects, modify or translate text inside images, and others. Plus, it supports collaborative editing and the ability to create several different generations of the image you’ve requested, so you can pick the best one.

The software will be built into Google Workspace, initially starting with Docs and Slides, which rolls out today. It will later come to Google Drive, the company says.