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…

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. Topics AI, Apps, canva, Google When you purchase through links in our articles, we may earn a small commission. This doesn’t affect our editorial independence. Sarah Perez Consumer News Editor Sarah has worked as a reporter for TechCrunch since August 2011. She joined the company after having previously spent over three years at ReadWriteWeb. Prior to her work as a reporter, Sarah worked in I.T. across a number of industries, including banking, retail and software. You can contact or verify outreach from Sarah by emailing sarahp@techcrunch.com or via encrypted message at sarahperez.01 on Signal. View Bio October 13 – 15 San Francisco Don’t miss out. The startup community will gather to answer a pivotal question: How do you build sustainably in the AI era? REGISTER NOW Most Popular Apple shares ‘shocking evidence’ against former employee accused of stealing company data for OpenAI Amanda Silberling Microsoft tests fix for latest hours-long Outlook outage Sarah Perez MapQuest’s app surges to No. 1 in Navigation after refusing to rename Lake Ontario Sarah Perez Musk’s faster path to more gas turbines comes with pollution problem Connie Loizos Hugging Face is selling a cute $399 open source duck robot, Microduck Rebecca Bellan Nvidia closes in on Hugging Face acquisition Connie Loizos Viral AI startup Instinct has raised $350M at a $2.5B valuation Lucas Ropek

Source: TechCrunch — Published September 1, 2026 at 17:35 UTC — Category: Business