OpenAI introduced a new way to interact with ChatGPT on Thursday: an interface it calls “canvas.” The product opens a separate window, beside the normal chat window, with a workspace for writing and coding projects. Users can generate writing or code directly in the canvas, then highlight sections of the work to have the model edit. Canvas is rolling out in beta to ChatGPT Plus and Teams users on Thursday, and Enterprise and Edu users next week. Several consumer AI providers are converging around editable workspaces as a practical way to use generative AI. ChatGPT’s new interface offers similar features to Anthropic’s Artifacts, launched in June, and the viral coding companion, Cursor. OpenAI is racing to match competitor offerings, and launch entirely new capabilities in ChatGPT, as a means to grow its paid user base. AI chatbots today can’t complete large projects from a single prompt, but they can often create a good starting point. Editable workspaces, like canvas, allow users to fix parts of an AI chatbot’s output that are wrong, without having to scrutinize their prompt and generate a whole new stretch of code. “This is just a more natural interface for collaborating with ChatGPT,” said OpenAI product manager Daniel Levine 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 canvas windows will just pop out when ChatGPT detects a separate workspace could be helpful, say for longer outputs or complex coding tasks. You can also just write “use canvas” to automatically open a project window.

Full feature : OpenAI launches new ‘Canvas’ ChatGPT interface tailored to writing and coding projects.