How It Works
Canvas
In AI tools, a workspace beside or instead of the chat where the AI and the person edit the same document, code file or design directly, rather than passing messages back and forth. OpenAI, Anthropic (as Artifacts), Google and GitHub Copilot offer versions of it.
Origin · no single documented coiner
Borrowed from the painter’s canvas via earlier software usage (such as the HTML canvas element). OpenAI launched a feature named Canvas in ChatGPT in October 2024; GitHub describes canvases for Copilot on its blog.