Shopify introduced Canvas on Thursday, an AI-powered site-building tool that lets merchants create and modify online stores by chatting with its AI agent, Sidekick.
Canvas is initially available only on desktop and lacks several capabilities at launch, including third-party theme support, app blocks and extensions, markets, translations, rollouts and theme updates.
Merchants can ask Sidekick to build their site or change its elements through chat. Canvas displays the results in real time as the agent works, so users can watch their store take shape rather than wait for the changes to be completed.
Shopify says Canvas renders the actual code behind a merchant’s store, rather than displaying a static preview. Merchants can test a page’s full interactivity and animations, as well as check how pages appear at different screen sizes.
The interface lets users view the entire store at once, zoom in on specific details and pan around the site while making updates to its actual files. Merchants can also click individual elements to edit them directly instead of requesting changes through Sidekick.
Sidekick takes screenshots of its work as the site updates. Those images let the AI agent see the same changes that the merchant sees in Canvas.
Shopify gave Sidekick direct access to theme files to enable the site-building functionality. The company also simplified the theme architecture to make the store’s structure, logic and design easier for the agent to understand and modify.
Before Canvas, Shopify’s no-code builder let merchants select a theme and edit it by rearranging modular sections and blocks. More extensive customization required editing code or hiring a developer, rather than making all the changes through the no-code interface.
Sidekick was already available for tasks such as writing code, building apps, customizing themes and making other edits. Canvas brings those capabilities into a full site-building product, with a store-wide view and the ability to work on the files behind the site.
Canvas joins AI-powered website-building offerings from Wix, Squarespace, Webflow and Framer. Other tools available for creating websites include the vibe-coding platforms Lovable and Replit.
The initial release does not include support for third-party themes or app blocks and extensions, limiting the features merchants can use while building stores in Canvas. The other absent capabilities include tools for markets and translations, along with rollouts and theme updates.
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