With more AI platforms and bots competing with each other: there is Copilot, TwinsChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity, just to name a few – we are seeing new updates and improvements appear quite frequently. One of the more recent additions that OpenAI has put into ChatGPT is called Canvas and it’s a bit like an AI-powered Google Docs.
OpenAI describes it as “a new way to work with ChatGPT to write and program” and means that you are essentially collaborating with artificial intelligence on a text document or program code. Of course, you can already do this in the main chat interface, but with Canvas it’s a bit more like having an AI colleague with you.
Right now you must be a ChatGPT Enterprise, ChatGPT ProOR ChatGPT Plus user (from $20 per month) to access the Canvas template. You’ll find it in the drop-down menu at the top of the conversation screen, in the top left corner.
Getting started with Canvas
With Canvas selected as your AI model, you can begin interacting with ChatGPT as you normally would. Use the message box to describe the type of code you need to write or the type of text you need to generate. However, you need to say something to indicate that you want to create a new canvas: something like “create a document” or “start a canvas” somewhere in your prompt will do that.
When the ChatGPT Canvas interface fully launches, you’ll see the familiar chat conversation on the left and whatever you’re working on on the right. You have a few different options here. You can enter a new prompt to get more text (or code), you can manually type something into the Canvas pane, or you can select something that ChatGPT has generated and ask for revisions.
These different options are what makes Canvas a more collaborative mode. In the top right corner you’ll find shortcuts to view previous versions of your document or copy text elsewhere. In the bottom right corner, meanwhile, you’ll find a pop-up toolbox that gives you a variety of options, depending on whether you’re writing text or programming code with ChatGPT.
If you’re writing, you can find tools to suggest edits, adjust the length of the output created by ChatGPT, change the reading level of the text, refine the written output, or add emojis to the document. For example, click Reading Level and you can use the slider to make the text more or less complex.
