Shopify’s New Canvas Tool Uses AI to Create Custom Online Stores

Shopify has introduced Canvas, a new store-building workspace that lets merchants create and customize online shops by chatting with Sidekick, the company’s AI agent. The tool is rolling out over the coming days and is designed to let users build directly on their store’s underlying theme files while watching changes appear in real time.

Canvas expands on Shopify’s existing no-code editing tools, which previously centered on rearranging theme sections and blocks. More advanced changes could still require code or outside development work. With Canvas, merchants can instead describe what they want to Sidekick and have the AI make coordinated edits across the store.

The workspace shows multiple store pages together, allowing merchants to pan across the full site and zoom into individual areas. As Sidekick makes changes, Canvas renders the actual store code rather than a static mockup. Merchants can test interactions, animations, different screen sizes, products and collections as they work.

Users can still edit elements manually, but Shopify is positioning conversation with Sidekick as a central way to make changes. The AI can ask questions, propose design directions and retain earlier preferences during the session so merchants do not have to repeatedly explain the same choices.

Shopify also gives Sidekick access to screenshots of the store as it changes. That allows the AI to inspect the visual result of its own edits in addition to validating the code behind them.

“Today, an entrepreneur on Shopify can build a fully custom store in twenty minutes that’s head and shoulders above what I built then,” said Ben Sehl, Shopify’s director of product and co-founder of Kotn. “That’s what we’re enabling with Canvas: helping more entrepreneurs get closer to the version of their store that exists in their head.”

Sidekick itself is not new to Shopify. The agent has already been used for tasks including app generation, theme customization and code writing. Shopify said Sidekick made more than 25 million theme edits in the first half of 2026.

To support broader site-building work, Shopify changed both Sidekick and the underlying theme system. The AI can now work directly with theme files, while the theme architecture has been simplified so Sidekick can more easily understand and modify a store’s structure, logic and design.

The company says Sidekick also checks its own work by validating code and reviewing screenshots before returning the result to the merchant. That process is intended to support tasks ranging from small section-level changes to wider store redesigns.

“Getting Sidekick to write code was easy, but guiding it to make good design decisions took a great deal of time and attention,” said Austin Knight, design director at Shopify.

Canvas is still an early product and is not replacing Shopify’s existing editor for now. Shopify said there are still gaps to address as it continues developing the tool.

“We’re early here and Canvas is not replacing the existing editor yet,” Sehl said. “Things will change quickly, and there are gaps we still need to close.”

Canvas is rolling out to Shopify merchants over the coming days.

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This analysis is based on reporting from Shopify.

Image courtesy of Shopify.

This article was generated with AI assistance and reviewed for accuracy and quality.