Most people who use AI chat tools eventually run into the same friction. A useful draft appears inside a message, then the next revision appears in another message, and after a few rounds the original work is buried several scrolls back. Finding the version that still works, or the exact paragraph that needs shortening, turns into its own small task.
Over the past couple of years a number of services have started moving that kind of output out of the chat stream and into a separate pane so the conversation and the thing being made can sit side by side.
Proton's Lumo recently added a version of this arrangement it calls 'Creations.'
According to the announcement, when a request looks like it will produce something meant to be kept or revised, such as a report, a code file, or a web page, the interface opens a canvas next to the chat.
Ordinary questions stay in the conversation.
Documents appear as formatted text that can be edited directly, including access to the underlying Markdown. A user can highlight a passage and ask for a specific change, for instance to cut the length or shift the tone.
Code can be selected for an Improve or Explain action, or revised by describing the needed alteration in the chat. Interactive web pages open with a preview that can be updated through further instructions.
Each revision, whether requested or made by hand in a document, becomes a new version that can be rolled back.
Creations are collected in a library that can be opened from other conversations, and the system is built so that the content remains encrypted in a way that keeps it inaccessible to Proton’s servers.
Exports to formats such as Word or PDF are generated on the device rather than sent out for conversion.
This general pattern is not new. ChatGPT introduced Canvas earlier as a collaborative editor that appears beside the chat.
It supports highlighting sections of text or code and requesting targeted changes, along with version history that lets earlier drafts be recovered. The emphasis has tended to fall on longer documents and iterative writing or coding work, with controls for adjusting length, reading level, or specific passages without regenerating the entire piece.
Claude has offered Artifacts for some time, which also place generated material in a side pane. Those artifacts have been particularly useful for interactive items such as HTML pages, React components, or simple playable prototypes, because the pane can render and run them directly while the conversation continues. Changes are typically made by describing what should be different, after which a new version of the artifact appears.
Gemini has added its own Canvas feature as well, following a similar side-by-side layout for documents and generated content, with varying levels of live preview and editing depending on the type of output.
The practical differences between these tools tend to show up in the details of editing and in how the material is stored. Some make it easier to edit text by hand inside the pane, while others lean more on prompting for a fresh version.
Preview quality for interactive pages also varies.
What Lumo's version adds most clearly is the encryption model already used for its chats: the library and the creations themselves are handled so that the service provider cannot read the content, and processing for display and export stays on the user’s device.
Taken together, side-pane features are nothing new.
But for Lumo, it marks a shift in how its chat interfaces handle material that is meant to be worked on rather than simply read. The conversation remains the place for discussion and direction, while the output gains a more stable place where it can be viewed, revised, and recovered. The underlying capabilities are close enough across the major services that the choice often comes down to secondary factors such as existing accounts, integration with other tools, or preferences around data handling.
For anyone who regularly ends up hunting through old messages for a usable draft, the basic idea of keeping the work visible beside the chat has already proven useful in more than one product.
