Canvas is a workspace that appears as a side panel inside Google’s AI Mode in Search. Instead of bouncing between a search tab, a document editor, and a code IDE, Canvas keeps your project in one place and lets you keep iterating through follow-up prompts over time.
AI Mode itself is Google’s conversational search experience that replaces traditional search results with AI-driven responses. Canvas is the “do the work here” layer inside that experience, powered by Gemini.
Availability: Who Can Use Canvas in AI Mode
Canvas in AI Mode is available to everyone in the United States in English. The update expands Canvas from an AI writing and planning space into something that can also support coding projects and interactive tools.
How Canvas Turns Google Search Into a Project Workspace
Canvas is designed for continuity. You start a project, and then you keep improving it through a back-and-forth flow—without leaving Search.
A Side Panel That Keeps Your Work “Open”
Because Canvas lives alongside AI Mode, it behaves more like a persistent work area than a one-off answer box. You can keep the same project active, refine outputs, and build on earlier steps with additional prompts.
A Tool Menu Entry Point (So You Can Start Building Fast)
To create something inside Canvas, you select the Canvas option from the tool menu in AI Mode and describe what you want to make. From there, Gemini generates a working prototype directly inside the Canvas panel.
Using Canvas for Coding: Prototypes, Small Apps, and Interactive Tools
The update adds support for coding projects, positioning Canvas as a lightweight environment for building and iterating on small software experiences directly inside Google Search.
What You Can Build in Canvas
Canvas can generate working code for small projects such as:
- Basic web apps
- Calculators
- Simple games
The key detail is that the prototype appears in Canvas after generation, so you’re not just receiving code snippets—you’re getting something you can review and evolve inside the workspace.
Editing, Expanding, and Debugging the Generated Code
Once Gemini generates code in Canvas, you can:
- Review the code
- Edit it directly
- Ask Gemini to improve or expand it
- Request new features
- Get help debugging issues
- Ask for explanations of how parts of the code work
That makes Canvas less about “here’s code” and more about “let’s keep shaping this until it works the way you want.”
Using Canvas for Writing: Drafting, Refining, and Restructuring Content
Canvas continues to support writing tasks, and the workflow mirrors the coding experience: generate a draft, then refine it through targeted prompts.
Common Writing and Planning Use Cases
Canvas supports tasks such as:
- Drafting essays
- Planning reports
- Organizing study guides
Highlight-to-Refine Editing With Follow-Up Prompts
You can highlight sections of what you’ve written and ask Gemini to:
- Expand ideas
- Simplify explanations
- Restructure content
It’s a very “stay inside the document” style of iteration—less copying and pasting, more direct shaping.
How Canvas Uses Web and Knowledge Graph Information to Improve Work
Canvas can pull relevant information from the web and Google’s knowledge graph to help refine what you’re building or writing. In practice, this frames Canvas as a workspace that isn’t isolated from Search—it’s built to draw on search-and-knowledge resources while you’re producing an output.
Planning and Booking Trips With Canvas Mode
Canvas mode can also be used to plan and book a trip using AI. This highlights the broader direction: Canvas isn’t only for documents or code, but for multi-step projects where you want to organize decisions and keep improving a plan over time.
Search Is Now a Place to Create, Not Just Discover
With coding and creative writing support added to Canvas, Google is positioning Search as more than a destination for information retrieval. The idea is that Search can be where you build, write, and refine projects with AI assistance—using one interface, one workspace, and a running thread of prompts.