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What People Miss About Canvas
When OpenAI launched Canvas, the response was predictable. “It’s just another no-code builder.” “We already tried visual programming – it didn’t work.” “Why go backwards to drag-and-drop?”
I get it. We’ve been burned before. The last decade was full of tools promising you could build anything by connecting boxes. Most were either too simple to be useful or too complicated to be simple.
But Canvas isn’t that. It’s solving a different problem.
Here’s the thing about chatting with an AI: it’s great for saying what you want. “Write me a function that filters users by age.” Done. But try explaining how something should work when it gets complicated. Try describing a decision tree with five branches. Or a function that calls itself recursively. Or a workflow where three things happen in parallel and then sync up.
You can do it in words. But it’s painful. Language forces you to linearize things that aren’t linear. You end up saying “first this, then that, but remember that other thing from earlier connects back here.” It’s like giving someone directions to your house by phone when you could just draw them a map.
That’s what Canvas is for. Not instead of conversation, but alongside it.
You still talk to the AI to say what you want. But when the structure gets complex – when there are multiple paths, or feedback loops, or things that depend on each other in non-obvious ways – you need to see it laid out in space. Not because you’re not technical enough to understand code, but because your brain works spatially. Mine does too.
The best analogy is probably whiteboards. When you’re working through a hard problem with someone, you talk through it. But at some point, one of you stands up and draws it. Not because talking failed, but because some ideas are shapes, not sentences.
What’s interesting isn’t that OpenAI added a canvas. It’s that they’re trying to figure out when to use which mode. When should the AI respond with words? When should it show you a diagram? When should it let you drag things around?
We don’t have good answers yet. But the question is right. The future isn’t “everything is conversation” or “everything is visual.” It’s knowing which tool fits which thought.