Cidi Labs has introduced new AI-powered Design Assistants in DesignPLUS, giving instructional designers and instructors a faster way to create engaging learning experiences directly in the Canvas LMS.
Featured at InstructureCon 2026, the Design Assistants use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to help generate professionally styled and interactive content for a growing range of DesignPLUS elements, from headings to accordions to image alt text, and more. Users can generate suggestions for content and designs in seconds, then review and customize the results before adding them to their course.
The goal isn’t to replace the expertise that goes into great course design. Instead, the Design Assistants can help reduce repetitive course-building work so instructional designers and educators can spend more time creating engaging and accessible learning experiences.
DesignPLUS makes it easy to add accessible, interactive elements directly to Canvas course content. Now, AI-powered Design Assistants can help create the content for those interactions, too.
AI-powered Design Assistants can generate content for a growing range of DesignPLUS interactive elements, including:
Start with existing course content, keywords, or a topic, and the Design Assistant can generate a starting point for your interaction in seconds.
Want to turn key concepts from a lesson into flashcards? Create a quick knowledge check based on course content? Give students an opportunity to sort concepts?
DesignPLUS can help you achieve these results faster.
AI can provide a good starting point, but instructors and instructional designers know their courses, learning objectives, and students best.
That’s why DesignPLUS keeps users in control. AI-generated content can be reviewed, refined, and customized before it’s added to the Canvas editor. And because DesignPLUS works directly in the Canvas rich content editor, users can continue editing the content and design in the familiar RCE whenever needed.
Depending on the interaction, users can also adjust options such as grade level and output language to better fit their students’ needs and learning objectives.
The Design Assistant helps with the initial work of creating the interaction. The instructor or course designer makes the final decisions about what belongs in the course.
Course design involves countless small tasks that can add up quickly. AI Design Assistants can reduce some of that repetitive work so instructional design teams and educators can spend more time thinking about how students engage with their courses.
Instead of manually building every flashcard, question, or interactive exercise, course designers can spend time deciding where interaction will have the greatest impact on learning.
That can mean more opportunities for students to retrieve information, check their understanding, practice applying concepts, and interact with course content, all without turning every learning activity into another graded assignment.
Because AI Design Assistants are part of DesignPLUS, course designers can use AI to create interactive learning experiences as part of their existing Canvas course design workflow.
It’s another way DesignPLUS helps educational institutions spend less time on repetitive course-building tasks and more time creating engaging, accessible, and consistent learning experiences for students.
DesignPLUS AI Design Assistants are currently in beta and can be enabled by your institution.
Want to see more of what you can do with DesignPLUS? Learn more about DesignPLUS and find out how Cidi Labs helps instructional designers and educators create engaging, accessible, and consistent learning experiences in Canvas.
You can also follow Cidi Labs on LinkedIn and subscribe to the Cidi Labs Digest for course design and accessibility resources. And visit our webinars page to watch past Cidi Labs webinars or register for an upcoming session.
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