Canva has cut its annual revenue forecast after revealing the cost of rolling out its highly anticipated AI suite proved far higher than expected, forcing the design giant to slow its launch. In a letter to shareholders, Canva co-founder and CEO Melanie Perkins said the company deliberately delayed the broader rollout of Canva AI after discovering the economics behind serving AI requests at scale simply weren’t sustainable. Canva launched Canva AI 2.0 in April, introducing AI-powered workflows capable of generating fully editable marketing campaigns from a simple prompt while pulling information from connected platforms including Slack and Gmail. Canva has begun rolling out Canva AI 2.1, which Perkins described as the first version built on an economic model designed to support the company’s freemium growth strategy. “We’ll roll out Canva AI 2.1 thoughtfully, expanding access as we continue to monitor quality, engagement and unit economics,” she said.