OpenAI on Thursday introduced a new way to interact with ChatGPT, an interface the company calls “canvas.” The product opens a separate window next to the regular chat window with a workspace for creating and coding projects. Users can write and generate code directly within the canvas, highlighting sections of their work and letting them edit the model. Canvas will be available in beta on ChatGPT Plus and Teams on Thursday, and will be available to Enterprise and Edu tier users next week.
Several consumer AI providers are rallying around editable workspaces as a practical way to use generative AI. ChatGPT's new interface offers similar functionality to Anthropic's Artifacts, which launched in June, and its viral coding companion, Cursor. OpenAI is competing to offer competitors' services and launch new features of its own on ChatGPT as a way to expand its paying user base.
While current AI chatbots cannot complete large projects from a single prompt, they can often create a good starting point. Editable workspaces like a canvas allow users to fix incorrect parts of an AI chatbot's output without having to comb through prompts and generate entirely new code.
ChatGPT's new editable project window. (Open AI)
“This is a more natural interface for working with ChatGPT,” OpenAI Product Manager Daniel Levine said in a demo with TechCrunch.
In our demo, Levine had to select “GPT-4o with Canvas” from ChatGPT's model picker drop-down window. However, OpenAI says that when ChatGPT detects another workspace, a canvas window simply pops up, which could be useful for long outputs or complex coding tasks, for example. Just type “Use Canvas” and the project window will automatically open.
Levine showed TechCrunch how ChatGPT's new features can help with email composition. Users can tell ChatGPT to generate an email, which will pop up in a canvas window. Users can then use the slider to adjust the writing length to be shorter or longer. You can also highlight specific sentences and ask ChatGPT to make changes like “make this sound more friendly” or add emojis. Users can also ask ChatGPT to rewrite the entire email verbatim in another language.
New coding shortcuts. (OpenAI) Image credit: OpenAI /
The Coding Canvas works a little differently. Levine inspired ChatGPT to create an API web server in Python, which was generated in a canvas window. When you press the “Add Comment” button, ChatGPT will add inline documentation that explains your code in plain English. Additionally, you can highlight sections of the code created by ChatGPT and ask the chatbot for clarification or questions about it. ChatGPT also includes a new “Review Code” button. This button suggests accepting, editing, or rejecting specific edits to the code in the window, whether generated or user-authored. Once you press accept, ChatGPT itself will work on fixing the bug.
Once Canvas is out of beta, OpenAI plans to make this feature available to free users.