ChatGPT and Canva (and a Bit of Capcut)

Introduction

Over the past few weeks, we'd been eagerly awaiting certain new features on ChatGPT. I chose to talk about just one: the one related to Canva.

For those who don't know Canva, it's an online graphic design platform that allows anyone to create a variety of visual content without needing advanced design skills. In other words, without being a professional designer, you can produce quality visuals like presentations, flyers, and more.

So naturally, when I heard that Canva and OpenAI were going to be connected, I was thrilled and couldn't wait to test it!

Being able to enter instructions in the prompt from ChatGPT to guide my expectations and produce a visual on Canva -- that's a massive time saver.

Quick tangent: in my view, AIs are assistants -- they help, but they don't do the work for me. They save me time by letting me move faster in my actions. In that sense, I 200% agree with Cedric Villani's report from November 2018, where he saw artificial intelligence as an aid for humans.

But let's get back on track.

ChatGPT Plugins

First off, to install the Canva plugin, you'll need a ChatGPT Plus account, which is a paid subscription.

If you have this type of account, just follow these steps:

1. Create a new chat
2. Select GPT 4, then click on it and select Plugin
3. Under GPT 4, you'll see plugins -- click on them and go to the store
4. Search for your plugin -- in our case, you'll want Canva
5. Select Canva

There you go, now you can play around with it.

The Canva Plugin

In the prompt box -- that is, where you type your instructions -- you'll enter what you want from Canva. As always, the more specific your request, the better your results will be.

For example, in theory, you don't need to say in your prompt: "with Canva" or "I want you to use Canva."

In practice, I explicitly say that I want ChatGPT to use Canva.

I played around with the tool to see its capabilities and its limits. At first, I started broad: "With Canva, I'd like a poster on the theme of ecology." The keywords are "Canva," "Poster," "Ecology." If you're used to Canva, it's a standard and easy search. I don't really need GPT for this, but for the sake of testing, the search goes through it. The results are fairly solid, and I have a starting point.

Result:

"Of course! Here are some poster templates on the theme of ecology that you can use with Canva:

• Green Photocentric Vote Green Climate Change Poster
• Green Illustrated Leaves Nature Environmental Protection Poster
• Green Forest Illustration Ecological Protection Poster
• Green Nature Photo Environmental Protection Poster
• Minimalist Green Leaf Bulb Save Energy Poster

You can click on the links to go directly to the templates on Canva and customize them to your needs. Once on Canva, you can add or modify text, images, colors, and other elements to create your perfect ecology-themed poster."

For standard, simple searches, it does the job. All you have to do is click on the template you like and adapt it to your needs.

So it's a helpful tool.

BUT

When you have more complex requests, you hit the limits verrrrrrry quickly, and not only is there a huge time loss because you're trying to be clearer in your instructions, but there's also a disappointing effect when you can't find what you're looking for. In fact, the results are often completely off the mark.

After All

I get the impression the model isn't trained enough, which is why the results aren't convincing. For simple searches, I don't need ChatGPT. My disappointment comes from the fact that I expected the AI to handle a level of complexity.

After all, the plugin is still very young, and there's still progress to be made. Maybe it's simply too early.

I had the same feeling when using Capcut, which lets you produce videos from ChatGPT. You can tell it's still early days -- proof: I asked ChatGPT to produce a video based on our Squad AI website (so I used the webpilot plugin to tell ChatGPT to visit our website), and this is what came out:

https://youtu.be/zTBihu-53Ys

Capcut and ChatGPT

In all of this, we know there will be lightning-fast progress, and honestly, I can't wait to see what comes next!