Canva Cuts 1,271 Jobs, 22% of Staff, as Growth Slows for First Time in a Decade

Canva is laying off 1,271 people — 22% of its staff — as the design software maker confronts its first growth slowdown in ten years. The cuts, confirmed in a note to employees from co-founder and CEO Melanie Perkins, land at a company once valued far above its current roughly $35 billion mark.

It's a sharp turn for a firm that spent thirteen years compounding. In her note, Perkins wrote: "Over the past thirteen years, we've turned a dream in a pitch deck into a platform used by hundreds of millions of people." She didn't soften the diagnosis: "This has been our hardest year yet, and as we shared earlier this year, our growth has slowed for the first time in a decade."

Perkins was blunt about the stakes: "Yet success in our first chapter doesn't guarantee success in the next."

Why is Canva cutting now?

Two forces are squeezing the company at once.

First, AI costs. Canva has been shipping its own AI models to cut expenses and reduce reliance on third-party providers. That wasn't enough. The company trimmed its revenue growth forecast to 20%, down from 30%, specifically to absorb ballooning AI costs. The consequence hit the cap table too: early investors marked down Canva's valuation to about $35 billion earlier this year.

Second, competition. AI startups and general-purpose chatbots such as ChatGPT and Gemini can now generate images that let users assemble posters and presentations without a dedicated design tool. That erodes the core of Canva's offering.

For workers in design tooling and adjacent product roles, the signal is uncomfortable: the category that Canva helped popularize is being commoditized by chatbots.

What changes for the people who stay?

The restructuring goes beyond headcount. Canva is merging its product, growth, and platform teams into one structure, which the company says will reduce communication friction.

It's also reducing what it calls "subspecialisation" — meaning narrower, deep-expertise roles. Surviving employees should expect broader job descriptions and, in the company's words, more responsibilities per person.

Office policy is shifting too. Canva is moving toward hybrid work and asking staff to work from an office a few days per week, a reversal for a company that had embraced remote flexibility.

So the 78% who keep their jobs inherit heavier portfolios, merged reporting lines, and a commute.

Takeaway: a role at Canva now means wider scope, less specialization, and mandatory office days.

What does this say about the broader market?

Canva isn't an outlier. It joins a run of tech companies cutting staff while simultaneously spending heavily on AI — and absorbing valuation markdowns when growth forecasts slip.

The numbers frame it cleanly. A 10-percentage-point growth forecast cut, a valuation reset to roughly $35 billion, and 22% of payroll gone in a single decision.

For individual workers, the practical read is this: jobs built on a single narrow specialty at growth-stage tech firms carry more risk than they did two years ago, and AI spend is competing directly with headcount for budget.

Expect the merged-team, fewer-specialists model to spread as other software companies face the same AI cost curve and chatbot competition that pushed Canva to this reset.