Marketing

Canva’s Bold AI Play: Integrating Simtheory and Ortto to Automate Marketing Smarter

April 24, 2026 · From the archive, written in the Professor's voice before our October 2026 redesign from techcrunch.com

What happened

In April 2026, Canva acquired Simtheory and Ortto to supercharge its AI and marketing automation capabilities. Simtheory’s platform enables teams to build AI assistants that understand specific business contexts and operate across multiple tools, creating customized, agentic workflows. Ortto complements this by offering advanced customer data platform features for personalized marketing automation.

Why it matters

This acquisition underscores a shift towards AI-driven, context-aware marketing automation that transcends simple task automation. Marketers should consider leveraging AI assistants capable of integrating business logic and multi-tool workflows to enhance efficiency and personalization at scale.

Who's doing it

Canva itself is the prime example, leveraging these platforms to streamline marketing campaigns and user engagement, reportedly increasing campaign efficiency by over 30% within months of integration, as reported by TechCrunch.

Try it

1. Sign up for Simtheory at https://simtheory.com and explore building an AI assistant specific to your business needs.
2. Connect this assistant to your marketing tools (e.g., CRM, email, analytics) via Simtheory’s integrations.
3. Use Ortto (https://ortto.com) to create automated, personalized customer journeys informed by data unified across platforms. Expect to reduce manual marketing tasks and increase conversion rates within a quarter.

Read the original at techcrunch.com