Thinking Canvas

Particles that riff on what an LLM is discussing as it works — not a window into its internals.

Problem

• Most chat interfaces collapse the model's intermediate steps into "thinking..." spinners.

Approach

• While the main model streams its reply (extended thinking on), a companion Haiku call runs in parallel, extracting three concrete visual concepts from the conversation.
• ~8,000 physics-simulated particles flow into each shape in turn.
• The canvas renders a visual riff on what's being discussed, paced by the model's work — not a window into its internals, and it shouldn't be read as one.

Outcome

• There's real anticipation in seeing what the companion model reaches for, and the associations aren't always what you'd predict.
• It started as "can I make waiting beautiful?" and ended as a small argument that thinking-time UI is an underexplored product surface.