I test ChatGPT features for a living, and this new one really did supercharge my productivity

OpenAI is continually including new options to ChatGPT to make it extra useful for on a regular basis wants and extra important in our workflows. The newest of those updates is a brand new canvas characteristic — unveiled final week — that has left me past impressed. 

In the event you use ChatGPT as a co-editor in any capability, you’ll by no means once more use ChatGPT with out this characteristic. Canvas is a brand new interface that makes collaborating in your writing and coding tasks simpler with ChatGPT. The idea is greatest understood visually, so persist with me. Here is how Canvas works.

The interface

In case you are a ChatGPT Plus subscriber, you may select the “GPT-4o with canvas” beta from the mannequin selector dropdown within the ChatGPT interface. Upon choice, your web page could look the identical, however when you enter your venture, you will notice the magic occur. 

For my instance walk-through, I will use an essay I printed as an undergrad. (I do not use any AI instruments to edit or write my ZDNET articles in any capability.) I copied and pasted the essay textual content into the textbox with the immediate: “Are you able to assist me edit this piece?” 

As you may see under, it mechanically opened a brand new interface during which my edited venture was positioned on the best aspect of the display screen, my preliminary immediate was on the left, and a textbox was obtainable to ask further questions. With this interface, regardless of what number of questions you ask, or what number of edits are made, your venture will all the time stay in the identical spot on the best, supplying you with straightforward visibility as to what it’s wanting like after every edit, and the way it fares subsequent to the unique.

What makes Canvas a game-changer? Usually, whenever you ask ChatGPT to revise the textual content, the AI outputs the brand new model as the subsequent message, making it tough to match the unique and edited piece side-by-side and hold monitor of the modifications. 

Though ChatGPT has superior writing expertise, it is nonetheless AI and susceptible to hallucinations, so it is helpful to double-check edits. Preserving monitor of the edits can be helpful as a result of it helps you study from the modifications and probably implement them subsequent time. It additionally prevents you from having to scroll up and down constantly by way of your dialog to seek out the ideas and edits. 

The shortcuts 

One other game-changing factor of this structure is the shortcuts. On the best web page the place your venture lives, a button within the backside within the decrease proper nook — represented by a pencil — consists of 4 one-click shortcuts that may remodel your venture with a click on. 

The writing shortcuts assist customers alter lengths, change studying ranges, add emojis, and “add ultimate polish,” which checks for grammar, readability, and consistency. The coding shortcuts can evaluation code, add logs, add feedback, repair bugs, and port to a language. The buttons are a fast and environment friendly approach to implement the change you need with out utilizing textual content prompts. 

Here is one other handy instrument: Once you spotlight a portion of your venture, one other set of shortcuts will seem. This time, Canvas lets you change the formatting with choices equivalent to daring, italicize, or change textual content sort and ask ChatGPT immediately for assist with that particular part. 

As soon as the edit on that particular part is full, it should mirror within the bigger venture, preserving the remainder of the venture intact and solely altering what the consumer requested — which helps the consumer keep organized. 

What concerning the high quality of the edits? As a result of Canvas makes use of GPT-4o — OpenAI’s most superior, well-rounded mannequin — the edits made are priceless and enhance the general high quality of the textual content. In the event you ask for a common edit, it won’t solely search for issues like grammar and spelling (as Grammarly does) however will test for syntax.

The price 

Sadly, the entire wonders described above will come at a value. To entry the characteristic proper now, it’s important to be a ChatGPT Plus subscriber, which prices $20 monthly. In case you are a ChatGPT energy consumer, the associated fee could also be justified because it comes with different perks, equivalent to the brand new Voice Mode and limitless picture generations.

Enterprise and Edu customers will get entry to Canvas this week, in keeping with OpenAI,  and ChatGPT free customers will acquire entry sooner or later as soon as the instrument is out of beta.