ChatGPT CANVAS ✍ : A Must-Have Tool for Content Writers in 2024

EDITOR’S NOTE

OpenAI has done it again.

With the release of ChatGPT Canvas, a tool designed to cater to the needs of both writers and coders, 2024 is shaping up to be an exciting year for creators of all kinds.

Writing or coding revisions on ChatGPT frequently involves multiple iterations, which can be cumbersome and confusing.

It's hard to keep track of the original text with all the changes and messages in the existing chatbot interface.

But imagine a tool that not only helps you write better content but also assists you in coding more efficiently, all within a single, dynamic workspace.

ChatGPT Canvas makes this vision a reality.

Dear Nanobiters,

In today’s edition of Nanobits Product Spotlight, let's explore what makes ChatGPT Canvas a must-have for your creative toolkit.

WHAT IS CHATGPT CANVAS?

ChatGPT Canvas is an enhanced, interactive platform developed by OpenAI to improve the user experience when working on writing and coding tasks.

Unlike traditional text-based chat interfaces, Canvas offers a more visual and structured workspace—a canvas that acts as a blank slate for creativity.

It's a place where writers can brainstorm ideas, create drafts, and polish their work, while coders can interact with intelligent code suggestions, debug their projects, and visualize their progress.

Canvas combines the best AI-powered creativity and technical assistance to provide an all-in-one environment for true productivity.

ChatGPT Canvas also marks a significant change in the interface, shifting from the traditional chat box to a more expansive chat window. This shift improves the user experience by providing a clear and organized workspace, helping users keep track of edits and ideas more effectively.

Canvas intends to foster a more natural feeling of human-AI collaboration.

Providing a visual and interactive space encourages users to seamlessly integrate AI's capabilities into their creative and problem-solving processes, making the experience feel more like a collaboration or partnership than a tool.

HOW DOES CHATGPT CANVAS WORK?

This part is tricky!

OpenAI’s team has acknowledged that a key challenge was defining when to trigger a canvas.

The model has been trained to initiate a canvas in response to prompts like "Write a blog on supervised vs. unsupervised learning" while preventing it from doing so excessively for general inquiries like "Explain the difference between supervised vs. unsupervised learning."

For specific writing prompts, like those requesting the generation of a draft blog post, the GPT-4o model has been trained to automatically launch a canvas – even without explicit user instruction – if it determines that doing so would be beneficial.

Conversely, for coding projects, the model will only initiate a canvas upon direct request. The OpenAI team made this conscious call not to disrupt the user experience of their coding power users.

While I have read a few reviewers claiming that irrespective of the model chosen, starting your prompt with "Use Canvas" will automatically trigger the Canvas window. However, I didn't come across any such observation during my experiments.  

KEY FEATURES OF CHATGPT CANVAS

ChatGPT Canvas transforms your writing workflow by offering a suite of powerful editing features designed to refine and enhance your text.

Here's how Canvas can help you perfect your writing:

Smart Suggestions: Canvas provides inline suggestions and feedback directly within your text, helping you identify areas for improvement.

Length Adjustment: You can easily modify the length of your document. Whether you need to be concise or expand on your ideas, Canvas can adjust the text accordingly.

Reading Level Control: Tailor your writing to your target audience. Canvas allows you to adjust the reading level from Kindergarten to Graduate School, ensuring clarity and comprehension.

Polishing Touch: Ensure your writing is error-free and polished—Canvas checks for grammar, clarity, and consistency, providing a final layer of refinement.

Emoji Enhancement: Emojis can add personality and visual appeal to your writing. Canvas can suggest and insert relevant emojis for emphasis and color.

Targeted Edits: Focus on your revisions effectively. Canvas allows you to edit specific text sections without needing to rewrite the entire piece.

With Canvas, ChatGPT is truly evolving from a mere word curator into a co-author.

Revision History: While ChatGPT Canvas does not have a timestamped revision history like Google Docs, you can undo changes with the arrows buttons on the top right corner of the right panel.

For coding

ChatGPT Canvas is a powerful tool for coders as well.

Here's how Canvas can help you write better code:

• Code Review: Canvas provides inline suggestions to improve your code, helping you catch potential issues and write more efficiently.

• Debugging with Logs: Easily insert print statements into your code to help you debug and understand the flow of execution.

• Clearer Code with Comments: Canvas can add helpful comments to your code, making it easier for you and others to understand.

• Bug Fixes: Canvas can detect and automatically rewrite problematic code to resolve errors, saving you valuable debugging time.

• Language Conversion: Need to translate your code into a different language? Canvas can convert your code into JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, Java, C++, or PHP.

CHATGPT CANVAS vs. CLAUDE ARTIFACT

Looks like both the tools work on similar prompts for triggering the canvas or artifact.

However, there was one significant difference: Claude Artifact can create images but ChatGPT Canvas doesn’t have that capability yet. Here, take a look:

Both Claude Artifact and ChatGPT Canvas are unable to add images into the response as edits.

Another close alternative to ChatGPT Canvas available at the moment would be Google’s Gemini integration into G-suite that enables you to use generative AI inside of Google Docs.

CHATGPT CANVAS AS AN AI AGENT

Canvas can be seen as augmenting ChatGPT's capabilities as an AI agent in several ways:

• Canvas lets ChatGPT decide when to open the Canvas window and where to edit, even if you haven't told it to. It's like ChatGPT is starting to think for itself a little.

• Instead of just answering your questions, ChatGPT Canvas can suggest improvements to your writing or code on its own. It's like having a helper who sees what you need and takes action.

• With Canvas, ChatGPT can do more than just write text. It can do things like shorten your writing or add comments to your code with a single click. This means you don't have to give it as many instructions.

The development of Canvas and other structural experiments suggests a shift towards more versatile and integrated AI tools.

While chatbots remain relevant, the focus seems to be on expanding their capabilities and incorporating them into broader user experiences.

I anticipate a future where AI agents can act more autonomously and proactively, blurring the lines between simple assistance and collaborative partnership.

NANOBITS VERDICT

• Ease of use - 7/10

• Features - 7/10

• Price - $20 + taxes (available only for Plus & Team users)

• Speed - 8/10

Enterprise and Edu users will get access soon. OpenAI also plans to make canvas available to all ChatGPT Free users when it’s out of beta.

What was good:

1. GPT-4o, the model behind Canvas, is trained to collaborate as a creative partner, knowing when to open a Canvas, make targeted edits, and fully rewrite.

2. Canvas supports markdown and basic text formatting.

3. You can use files/documents in your prompt while using Canvas [Tip: Start the prompt with Use Canvas for better results all the time.]

What could have been better:

1. The UI is not very intuitive.

2. The prompt guidelines were insufficient and unclear.

3. The tool doesn’t provide a timestamped version history.

4. While Canvas enhances the editing process, it's important to note that LLMs like ChatGPT still face limitations in creative and persuasive writing tasks. No amount of prompting can fully overcome these limitations, and users should be aware of this.

5. While generally making targeted edits, there are instances where ChatGPT might edit outside the highlighted section, potentially causing confusion or requiring additional user intervention.

6. Currently, mobile users can only view Canvas projects, with full functionality restricted to desktop users.

7. Access to Canvas requires a ChatGPT Plus subscription, which costs $20 per month. While this may be worthwhile for "power users," it presents a barrier for casual users.

It's important to note that Canvas is still in beta, and OpenAI is actively working on improving its capabilities. Future updates might address some of these negative points, making Canvas an even more powerful tool for writing and coding.

Here are some structural experiments that we can anticipate in the future in the AI Space:

• Integrated AI Editors: Canvas itself is an example of this, integrating AI assistance directly into a document editing interface. Google's Gemini integration with Docs and Anthropic's Artifacts are other examples of this trend.

• AI-Generated Podcasts: Google's AI-generated podcasts are an example of innovative AI applications garnering attention.

• Agentic AI Tools: The concept of "agentic AI" is gaining traction. These tools would not only assist with tasks but could also act independently on behalf of the user, such as booking flights or making reservations. While previous attempts like ChatGPT plug-ins were discontinued, the development of more sophisticated agents seems to be a continued area of focus.

Whether ChatGPT Canvas signify the "death" of chatbots is debatable.

While AI companies are exploring alternative interfaces, chatbots remain a core interaction method.

The evolution seems to be towards a more diverse ecosystem of AI tools, with chatbots as one element within a broader landscape.

I highly recommend exploring ChatGPT Canvas (if you are a Plus user) firsthand! Dive into its various features and discover how it can improve your productivity and workflow. Let us know your experience in the comments.