ChatGPT is unveiling a major redesign with a new ‘Canvas’ interface for writers and coders

OpenAI changes the interface of ChatGPT to look like a digital notebook for projects.

On Thursday, OpenAI announced a beta “canvas” feature for writing and coding. A canvas is different from a dialog box interface, making it difficult to refine or improve ideas without going back and forth.

“Although the [ChatGPT] the interface is easy to use and works well for most tasks, it is limited if you want to work on projects that need to be edited and updated. “Canvas offers a new platform for this type of work,” the announcement said.

The new feature is ChatGPT’s first major design change since its launch in 2022. OpenAI has been busy doing other things, such as launching the multimodal model GPT-4o, the o1 thinking model, and raising $6.6 billion in its latest investment round. According to reports from New York TimesOpenAI told investors it plans to grow revenue from $3.7 billion this year to $11.6 billion by 2025. Updates to ChatGPT, such as making it more powerful and user-friendly, can help OpenAI better meet its ambitious financial goals.

Currently, Canvas is only available to paying subscribers, but OpenAI says it plans to expand access to non-paying users once it’s out of beta. If you are a ChatGPT Plus or Teams user, you can select “ChatGPT 4o with Canvas” from the model dropdown and get started. Access to Enterprise and Edu subscribers will be released next week.

From here, all you need to do is enter information related to writing or coding and it will open the Canvas by opening a new window. According to OpenAI’s announcement, ChatGPT is trained to recognize certain commands that trigger canvases. With text help, users can highlight specific parts of the text and click “ask ChatGPT” to edit or ask specific questions about the highlighted text.

There are also shortcuts in the lower left corner to raise the edit, shorten the length, change the reading level, polish the grammar, and add an emoji. The ChatGPT format sits on the left sidebar in case you want to keep the conversation going.

The canvas has a shortcut bar for editing.
Credit: OpenAI

For coding, Canvas works the same way, by seeing commands related to the code that opens in a new window. Shortcuts include: Review code, Add logs, Add comments, Fix bugs, and Port to language by translating your code into a different programming language (ie, JavaScript, TypeScript, Python, Java, C++, or PHP).

If you made a mistake, you can press the back button and go back to the previous version. When you’re done working, just close the window, and you’ll find yourself back in the normal ChatGPT interface. To find the project again, simply click on the module saved in your chat history.