ChatGPT’s Canvas feature is a real-time editor to inspire your writing and coding
- The fourth day of 12 Days of OpenAI brought Canvas out of beta for all ChatGPT users.
- This is a new text and code editing feature that focuses on collaboration.
Day four of OpenAI’s 12 Days of OpenAI aims to make ChatGPT work better with the general release of Canvas. The feature, which was first released in beta a few months ago, posts responses from the AI chatbot to a shared, editable page.
Imagine Clippy from Microsoft Word, but with advanced AI and without the annoying avatar taking up screen space. There are many uses for Canvas, especially with the upgrades added to the feature for the wide release.
With Canvas you can collaborate with ChatGPT on writing and coding projects. You can ask for help writing and editing text or even code on the Canvas page, then highlight the parts of the chatbot’s response that you want to change.
Instead of getting a static answer and copying it somewhere else to customize it, you can edit directly in the Canvas interface, commenting on parts of the AI’s answer and asking how you can change. Imagine a real-time partnership with a human co-writer or co-programmer, but much faster.
If you put a large portion of the already written text into Canvas, the AI will acknowledge this with a ‘Get Advice’ or ‘Help Me Write’ pop-up button. You’ll need to assign edits before the AI starts making changes, which OpenAI pitches as a way to ensure you maintain control over the content. You can let the AI comment on your work if you don’t want ChatGPT to rewrite your text. The results are suggestions and ideas without a total rewrite.
Canvas code and custom GPTs
Programmers who would like AI assistance can use Canvas to assist with editing. The AI will detect errors, provide ideas for improvement or comment on the program, just like with text. This also applies to emojis, and simply pasting code into Canvas will automatically put the AI chatbot into code editor mode.
The biggest upgrade for the general release is that Canvas can now edit and translate code into Python. There’s also a new ‘Run’ button that runs the written code so you can see the output in a console window. Any errors will be detected and identified, and the AI will suggest how to fix them or offer to fix them for you.
The other notable aspect of the new version of Canvas is its integration with Custom GPTs, the specialized versions of the AI chatbot that you can create yourself. It is now possible to embed Canvas in a custom GPT. There are many possibilities for personalization by combining Canvas and Custom GPTs. For example, imagine a custom GPT designed for short story editing that provides detailed feedback as you write, or a data analysis GPT that uses Canvas to run Python scripts.
If you’d like to give Canvas a try, it’s now available in this first non-beta version for ChatGPT users.