As part of its new Creative Operating System, Canva is introducing Canva Grow, which not only helps marketers design ads, but can also directly launch them and provide real-time performance insights. It’s all powered by AI that Canva says can “understand the complexity of design” at all stages. Relatedly, Figma has acquired Weavy, which allows users to combine different AI models to create and edit images and videos.
Forethought has launched Browser Agent, which allows AI to act inside any browser-based system without the need for APIs. This permits users to automate tasks that other AI agents can’t reach. Speaking of AI haunting life as we know it, Google is working on real-time architecture to support multi-agent systems.
Live shopping platform Whatnot has raised a $225 million Series F, more than doubling its valuation to $11.5 billion since its last funding round in January. The company reports that more than $6 billion worth of items have been sold on the platform so far this year. It’s more evidence that live shopping is growing.
Meta has announced agreements with USA Today, People Inc., and other news publishers to pay for access to their content and link to their articles in its AI chatbot. It’s a sharp contrast to Perplexity, which the Chicago Tribune and New York Times are separately suing for allegedly scraping content and bypassing paywalls. Despite this deal, Meta apparently still opposes compensating publishers for news links in social media posts.