'Existential' AI threat triggers Canva's mass job cuts

Canva, the Sydney-based graphic design company, is cutting more than 1,200 jobs, according to a report on inkl.com headlined 'Existential' AI threat triggers Canva's mass job cuts. Co-founder and chief executive Melanie Perkins announced the cuts in a note to the company's roughly 5,700 workers on Wednesday morning, the report says. The article states that the company faces slowing growth for the first time in its 13-year history.

The report does not break down which roles, teams or locations are affected, or state when the reductions take effect. It does not publish the text of Perkins's note beyond describing it as the means by which staff were told. The headline attributes the cuts to what it calls an 'existential' AI threat, placing the word existential in quotation marks. The excerpt supplied does not elaborate on that attribution, name any AI product or model, or give a figure for expected savings.

The article describes Canva as 13 years old and Sydney-based, and frames the cuts against slowing growth at the company. No revenue, valuation or cost-saving figures appear in the excerpt, and no statement from Perkins beyond her role as the person who delivered the note is quoted. Canva's headcount is given as roughly 5,700 and the number of jobs affected as more than 1,200; the excerpt does not set out how the two figures were calculated or over what period the reductions will occur.