By Canva’s own count, OpenAI is now the only AI lab ahead of it in image generation. The claim rests on Canva Craft , the first image model built and trained from scratch by the company’s in-house lab, Canva Research, which went live for every Canva user on Thursday and debuted in fourth place on DesignArena, a crowdsourced leaderboard for AI design.

All three models above it belong to OpenAI: GPT-Image-2.5 Sunburst, GPT-Image-2.5 Flare and GPT-Image-2, The Verge reported . Canva said Craft ranks first out of 87 models in DesignArena’s People & Portraits category and first out of 85 in Landscapes & Nature. Adobe put those same OpenAI models inside Firefly on their launch day in September.

Why Canva wanted a model of its own

Canva’s AI features have run on a blend of its own models and partners’.…