Fresh from news of its record-breaking $6.6 billion funding round: OpenAI updates its signature AI app ChatGPT with a brand new feature – canvas – This allows users to see, directly edit and simply change only chosen parts of the chatbot output in a side-by-side panel view.
The feature, based on OpenAI's GPT-4o model, may make suggestions and implement changes to the answers in the proper pane without having to issue a completely recent answer. It appears to be a direct challenge to AI startup Anthropic's Artifacts feature for its chatbot Claude, which launched in June 2024. It also provides a side panel view for viewing and running easy Python programs that update based on the user's prompts.
Canvas is rolling out to ChatGPT Plus and Teams users, with Enterprise and Edu tier subscribers following in just a few days. After the beta, OpenAI plans to make the feature available to all ChatGPT users.
Users on the social network X predicted Canvas before its initial release and speculated that OpenAI would release the feature soon, which turned out to be correct.
What ChatGPT Canvas is nice for
Daniel Levine, product manager for Canvas, told VentureBeat in an interview that the vertical, top-down chat window is typically too limited for a few of the commonest use cases.
“We know that many individuals use ChatGPT for writing and coding. Those are two of essentially the most common use cases we see,” Levine said. “But the chat interface is a bit limiting, especially for projects that require revisions or edits. There’s a whole lot of forwards and backwards and comparing changes is difficult, in order that’s where Canvas is available in.”
Levine talks about asking ChatGPT to edit its responses. If users ask ChatGPT without Canvas to create a draft email and feel the response must be longer, funnier, or friendlier, they are going to should ask ChatGPT again and rewords will appear in the identical conversation.
Sometimes the design changes drastically; Sometimes the change is subtle, but often you have got to scroll forwards and backwards to double-check what has modified.
OpenAI hopes Canvas will make the method easier. Users can in fact revisit ChatGPT, but when they simply want to alter just a few words, they don't should copy the text, which continues to be a primary draft, into one other document and edit it themselves.
How to make use of Canvas
Canvas opens after users toggle the model selection, where they typically select which version of OpenAI models to make use of. ChatGPT may detect when Canvas needs to be opened or when the user sends a “Use Canvas” prompt. They can then ask ChatGPT to either write something or generate code. For example, if a user wants to jot down an email to a colleague, they send the corresponding request to ChatGPT and open the Canvas window with the just generated text.
Users can still ask ChatGPT to refine the text that appears on the Canvas screen. People may make changes or give instructions to the chatbot directly in Canvas by highlighting text. In each Canvas window, there are numerous shortcuts that users can click that allow them to regulate text length, reading level, add emojis, and even add ending touches.
ChatGPT may provide suggestions for the text that appears in text boxes on Canvas, just like comments in Google Docs. It may also be translated into supported languages.
The canvas looks different depending on the duty. The writing canvas looks like a Word document, while the coding canvas accommodates line numbers to make code editing easier. The key combos for coding will even be different. Users can review code, fix errors, add logs and comments, and port it to a different programming language through Canvas.
Directly competes with Anthropic Claude's artifact feature
Canvas's separate window and model collaboration is paying homage to one other chatbot with a window where users can clearly see any changes made by recent prompts: Anthropics Claude artifacts.
VentureBeat's Michael Nunez reported that Claude Artifacts makes accessible and easy-to-understand interfaces a key feature of chatbots, calling it “crucial AI feature of this yr.” Unlike Canvas, Artifacts is already generally available to all Claude Chat users.
Artifacts also allow users to see what their generated code looks like, as users can ask Claude to jot down code, edit it, after which see the fruits of the labor, resembling a prototype of an internet site or game. Canvas simply shows users the generated code and the changes made to it.
The battle over the brand new interface, led by OpenAI's Canvas and Anthropic's Artifacts, points to an issue that smaller, third-party AI applications have been trying to unravel: the way to make chatbots easier to read and use.
Apps like Hyperwrite, jasper And JotBot All generate and offer text editing. Many other software programs offer similar code and text editing capabilities with the concept users don't have to go away the chat window to make changes to their work.
Over time, features like Canvas and even artifacts could develop into commonplace as more people wish to work more efficiently and collaboratively with chatbots.
“We consider that collaborative work is a very important a part of the workplace,” Levine said. “So we’re taking a primary step here.”
