What Is ChatGPT Canvas, and How Can You Use It?

What is ChatGPT canvas?

ChatGPT canvas is a version of ChatGPT that allows you to interact with ChatGPT as it helps you craft pieces of content.

Ever since 2022, when artificial intelligence (AI) tools first started making it big, ChatGPT has been the most recognizable name in the business. It dominates the AI playing field so heavily that people often use the terms “generative AI” and “ChatGPT” interchangeably, the same way they do with “tissues” and “Kleenex.”

Now OpenAI, ChatGPT’s parent company, has released a new version of the tool — and I don’t just mean a fresher model. ChatGPT canvas is a twist on the basic version of the tool, allowing you to interact more with ChatGPT to create the exact type of text that you want. But what does that mean, exactly?

That’s one of the things we’ll be exploring on this page. Below, we’ll cover the following:

• What is ChatGPT canvas?
• What can you use the ChatGPT canvas tool for?
• Features of ChatGPT canvas
• How to use ChatGPT canvas
• An example of Canvas in action
• Should you use ChatGPT canvas to write content?

Read on to find out more about each of these topics. And to find out how to use ChatGPT in your marketing — along with plenty of other marketing tips — be sure to sign up for Revenue Weekly, our email newsletter!

What is ChatGPT canvas?

ChatGPT canvas is a new ChatGPT interface that adds several features to the original, focusing on making the content generation process more interactive. The idea is for users to be able to edit the content ChatGPT generates for them directly, as well as being able to ask ChatGPT to make edits as they go.

What can you use the ChatGPT canvas tool for?

ChatGPT canvas is great for creating a variety of written content, including:

• Blog posts
• Emails
• Social media posts
• Website code
• And more!

That being said, it’s important to realize that this tool is best for creating content you intend to show to others. If you’re using ChatGPT to generate ideas or conduct research, you might as well just use the basic version of the tool.

In fact, as of this writing, ChatGPT will only activate the canvas interface if it detects that it’s needed, which won’t be the case if you’re just asking ChatGPT questions for your own benefit. The point of canvas is to help you craft content that will be published or posted somewhere else.

Features of ChatGPT canvas

Canvas offers a variety of new features that are not present in the standard version of ChatGPT. Those features include:

• Direct editing: You can edit the text that ChatGPT generates by adding new text, removing certain lines, or reworking phrasing as needed.
• Suggested edits: ChatGPT will suggest changes or tweaks you could make to the content you’re working on.
• Length adjustment: You can easily have ChatGPT shorten or lengthen the content.
• Reading level adjustment: ChatGPT can rewrite the content at a different reading level, starting at kindergarten and ending at graduate school.
• Final polishing: You can ask ChatGPT to give your content a final look-through, grammar check, and polish.
• Emojis: ChatGPT will add emojis throughout your content where it deems appropriate.

In addition to these features, you can also directly chat with ChatGPT in the left-hand sidebar to ask for other types of edits or revisions, the same way you can in the regular version of the tool.

How to use ChatGPT canvas

Interested in how to use ChatGPT canvas? Just follow these steps to get started:

1. Create a ChatGPT Plus account. As of this writing, canvas isn’t yet available for users of the free ChatGPT plan. It eventually will be, but for now, it’s only accessible on a paid account.
2. Choose the canvas model. In ChatGPT, click the dropdown menu in the top left corner of the page and select “GPT-4o with canvas.”
   
3. Enter a prompt. As mentioned earlier, for canvas to activate, the prompt should ask for a specific piece of content. It’s good to start it with a phrase like “write a blog post” or “create an email” and then elaborate on what you want that content to be about.
4. Start editing. Once ChatGPT pulls up the canvas interface and generates a response, you can start editing the content using all the features listed in the previous section.

An example of canvas in action

To illustrate the features and steps listed earlier on this page, let’s walk through an example of what it might look like to create a piece of content in canvas. For the sake of this example, let’s say I want to create a short blog post about how to deal with a fruit fly infestation.

After heading into ChatGPT and selecting the right model, I’ll start by entering my prompt:

Once I’ve done that, ChatGPT will generate a blog post and switch to the canvas interface automatically.

Upon reading through the post, I decide I want it to use more professional language. The easiest way to do that is to hover over the button in the bottom right corner and select “Reading level,” at which point I move it up to a college level:

Though I’m happy with the new language style, I now feel like the post is too long — I want something that people can read in one or two minutes. So, I go back to the button in the corner and select “Adjust the length,” and then move it down a couple of notches:

That’s better! Although, a small thing that jumps out at me now is the last line, which mentions leaving a comment. Since my blog doesn’t have a comment section, that line needs to go. No need to make ChatGPT do anything — I can go in and just edit it out myself:

I’m happy with this, but before I go, I also want to get a version of this blog post for the Spanish version of my site. So, I go to the sidebar and ask ChatGPT to translate it into Spanish:

There we go! All done.

Of course, if I were really writing something with ChatGPT, I’m sure I’d put more time and effort into it. This was just an example. And you might use some of the features I didn’t, just as you might not use some of the features that I did. But hopefully, the above example gives you an idea of what it’s like to use the ChatGPT canvas tool.

Should you use ChatGPT canvas to write content?

The short answer is no. I know I just used canvas to write a blog post in the above example, but that was just to show how the tool works. In the real world, please don’t let ChatGPT write your website content for you. Just because you make a few edits to an AI-generated piece doesn’t mean you wrote it.

The thing is, people don’t want to read content generated by AI. They want to read content from real human beings. That’s why forums are so wildly popular in search results. And we’re not even getting into the fact that AI has a tendency to make up false information in the content it creates.

That said, it’s okay to use canvas to help you generate initial outlines for your content. As long as the final product is written in your own words, ChatGPT can function as a helpful tool, and canvas allows it to do that a little bit more effectively.

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