For a while now, talk of AI and the impact this technology may have on the creative industries has mostly looked ahead. But for Canva, the free-to-use online graphic design platform, the brand wanted to understand how people in the creative and marketing industry were using it right now.

So as part of a piece of research launched this week, Canva has surveyed over 4,000 marketing and creative leaders on their “attitudes towards generative AI”. Commissioned with Morning Consult, the survey was shared with leaders in the US, UK, France, Germany, Spain, Brazil, Mexico, India and Australia. “We wanted to gauge their opinions on a technology that is having a profound impact on marketers and designers all over the world, because obviously, that’s a core audience for Canva,” Duncan Clark, Europe lead at Canva tells CR.

One of the top findings has been how generative AI has become a “firm fixture in the modern workplace”. “Despite some conversations and implications that you hear about AI replacing human creativity, we actually found that 98% of marketing and creative leaders in the UK said that they’re comfortable with the rise of generative AI,” notes Clark. “And over two thirds are already saying that they consider it an essential part of their creative toolkit. So we were amazed at the overwhelming positive sentiment but also the rate of which has been taken on.”