AI thinking canvas
Think any problem through, like a consultant
Bring a hard question — why revenue is flat, whether to enter a market, what could sink a launch. The canvas lays it out with a proven framework: one card per branch, a hub card that says what they add up to, and any item ready to be split again, questioned, or looked at through another framework.
- Price
- Free
- Online
- Runs in your browser — two runs with no account, then a free account
- Desktop
- Also works on your own files and writes the result up
Why a canvas, not a chat
A chat answer is a column of text you scroll past. A problem has branches.
- Each branch is its own card, so you can see the whole problem at once and still open any part of it.
- The hub card is the conclusion: what the branches mean together, not a summary of each.
- Going deeper happens where you point — one item, one branch — so the map grows where the answer is.
What you can do in the browser
Type a problem and the canvas works through it the way a consultant would — one step at a time, each step waiting for you.
- The advisor flow: clarifying questions you answer on the card, a one-sentence problem statement, an issue tree, testable hypotheses, priorities, and a one-page answer you can download as Markdown or Word.
- Read an article: paste the text or upload a PDF (up to 60,000 characters) and get a guided map of it. Cards it grows can be attached as evidence to a hypothesis on the same canvas.
- Every hypothesis starts as unverified, and only you can mark it supported or refuted — the one-page answer says “to be verified” instead of stating it as fact.
- Share a read-only link; whoever opens it can continue from any card with their own copy.
Frameworks on the canvas
Each page has a worked example, and you can run the framework on your own problem.
Think problems through with proven frameworks
Break a messy problem into sub-questions that don’t overlap, then dig into the branch that matters.
Size up a market’s profitability force by force — rivals, entrants, substitutes, buyers, suppliers — with a verdict.
All nine building blocks of a business model, filled in for your idea, with the one assumption it all hangs on.
Imagine the project already failed and work out why — likely failure stories, early signals and what to do now.
Answer first, then three supporting arguments with evidence — a recommendation a busy reader gets in one glance.
Strip away inherited assumptions, find what is actually true, and rebuild the answer from there.
Ask why five times, one link per card, to get from a symptom to the process gap behind it.
Size a market bottom-up — total, serviceable and obtainable — with the assumption behind each number.
Where it gets hard
- Two runs with no account, then a free account
Two runs need no account; after that, sign in with a free account and runs use the AI allowance in your plan. Canvases stay in this browser — export them or share a link to keep them elsewhere.
- Articles up to 60,000 characters; no web links
Read an article takes pasted text or a PDF. Longer documents and whole books are read in the desktop app, and web addresses are not fetched — paste the text instead.
- The full canvas is in the desktop app
On the desktop, the canvas also reads your own files and whole books, turns images into cards, and writes the result up as a document. “Open in MindMax” carries a web canvas over. It works on the Free plan.
- Frameworks structure thinking; facts come from you
The canvas proposes how to cut a problem and what to check. Figures in the examples are illustrative — on your own problem, the evidence has to come from your data.
Common questions
What is MindMax Think?
The online side of the MindMax canvas: an AI thinking canvas that lays a problem out as cards using frameworks like issue trees, Porter’s Five Forces, the business model canvas and pre-mortems.
Is it an online whiteboard?
No. There is no freehand drawing or sticky-note layout. The AI builds the structure and you steer it — expand this branch, question that item, try another framework.
Is it free?
Yes. Two runs online need no account; after that a free account is enough, and runs use the Free plan’s weekly AI allowance. The desktop canvas works on the Free plan too.
Think your problem through, branch by branch
Two runs need no account, then a free account. To work on your own files, use the free desktop app.