I’m a ChatGPT power user – and this new feature instantly made me more productive

OpenAI is consistently including new options to ChatGPT to make it extra practical for on a regular basis wants and important in our workflows. The newest of those updates is a brand new canvas characteristic — unveiled at the start of the month — that has left me past impressed. 

Should 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 follow me. Here is how Canvas works.

The interface

If you’re a ChatGPT Plus subscriber, you possibly can select the “GPT-4o with canvas” beta from the mannequin selector dropdown within the ChatGPT interface. Upon choice, your web page might look the identical, however when you enter your undertaking, you will notice the magic occur. 

For my instance walk-through, I am going to use an essay I printed as an undergrad since 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 possibly can see under, it routinely opened a brand new interface. My edited undertaking was positioned on the fitting facet of the display, whereas my preliminary immediate was on the left, with a textbox out there to ask extra questions. With this interface, regardless of what number of questions you ask or what number of edits are made, your undertaking will at all times stay in the identical spot on the fitting, supplying you with straightforward visibility as to what it seems to be like after every edit and the way it fares subsequent to the unique.

What makes the Canvas interface a game-changer? Sometimes, while you ask ChatGPT to revise the textual content, the AI outputs the brand new model as the following message, making it troublesome to match the unique and edited piece side-by-side and hold observe of the adjustments. 

For instance, with the common interface, should you ask one thing like “Are you able to revise this cowl letter?’ after which comply with up by asking to revise one particular paragraph, it could simply output the brand new paragraph, forcing you to return and piece each generations collectively. That is inconvenient, particularly should you commute quite a bit and there’s a number of dialogue in between. 

Though ChatGPT has superior writing abilities, it is nonetheless AI and is susceptible to hallucinations, so it is helpful to double-check edits. Retaining observe of the edits can be helpful as a result of it helps you study from the adjustments and presumably implement them subsequent time. It additionally prevents you from having to scroll up and down constantly by way of your dialog to search out the strategies and edits. 

The shortcuts 

One other game-changing aspect of this characteristic is the brand new shortcuts out there. On the fitting web page the place your undertaking lives, a button within the backside within the decrease proper nook — represented by a pencil — contains 4 one-click shortcuts that may rework your undertaking with a click on. 

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

Here is one other handy instrument (and my private favourite): you possibly can spotlight parts of your undertaking for particular adjustments, and while you spotlight traces of your textual content or code, one other set of shortcuts will seem. This time, Canvas lets you change the formatting with choices resembling daring, italicize, or change textual content sort and ask ChatGPT instantly for assist with that particular part. 

As soon as the edit on that particular part is full, will probably be mirrored within the bigger undertaking, conserving the remainder of the undertaking intact and solely altering what the person requested — which helps you keep organized. It’s so satisfying to see only one portion of your dwelling undertaking change. This may be particularly helpful for resumes, cowl letters, or different job software supplies. 

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 helpful and enhance the general high quality of the textual content. Should you ask for a common edit, it won’t solely search for issues like grammar and spelling (as Grammarly does) however will examine for syntax.

The fee 

Sadly, all the wonders described above will come at a price. To entry the characteristic proper now, you should be a ChatGPT Plus subscriber, which prices $20 per thirty days. If you’re a ChatGPT energy person, the fee could also be justified because it comes with different perks, such because the new Voice Mode and limitless picture era.

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