The Pulse
Shopify Introduces Canvas, an AI Workspace for Building Stores
Shopify is rolling out Canvas, a visual workspace where merchants build and revise online stores with its Sidekick AI agent. The company says Sidekick can edit theme code across a store, while Canvas lets merchants preview pages and changes
AI.info Team · Written with AI ·
“Today, an entrepreneur on Shopify can build a fully custom store in twenty minutes that’s head and shoulders above what I built then.”
Ben Sehl, director of product at Shopify and co-founder of Kotn
Shopify introduced Canvas on October 1, describing it as a new visual workspace where merchants can build online stores with Sidekick, the company’s AI agent. The tool is rolling out to merchants over the coming days. Shopify says it is meant to help people create custom storefronts without needing design experience or coding skills.
Canvas lays out the whole store
Rather than working through one page at a time, merchants can see the store’s pages together, pan across them and zoom in on details. They can change page elements directly or ask Sidekick to make edits through a chat interface. Shopify says those edits appear on the Canvas as they happen, so merchants can review each change in the context of the rest of the store.
The workspace displays a render of the store’s underlying code, not a static mockup, according to Shopify. Merchants can preview pages with interactive elements and animation, and view key pages with different products, collections and screen sizes. That gives them a way to inspect how a design holds together across the storefront before handing it back to customers.
Sidekick edits theme files and checks its work
Shopify says Sidekick can now work directly across a theme’s files, including the templates and code that shape a store. The company has simplified theme architecture to make that structure easier for the agent to interpret and change. The aim is to let Sidekick handle coordinated work across a theme, not just isolated edits to a page section.
As it makes changes, Sidekick validates its code and reviews screenshots of the result in Canvas, then uses that feedback to revise its work. Shopify says merchants can use the agent for tasks ranging from small section changes to redesigns across an entire store. The company reports that Sidekick made more than 25 million theme edits in the first half of 2026; that figure covers theme edits, not stores built with Canvas.
Shopify says the existing editor stays
Canvas does not replace Shopify’s existing store editor at launch. Sehl said the product is early and that the company still has gaps to close, while inviting merchants to try it and help shape its development. The announcement does not give a price or a firm date for when the rollout will reach every merchant.
The initial offer is a visual way to direct an AI agent through store-wide design work, with previews and code checks built into the process. For now, Shopify’s stated rollout is limited to the coming days, and merchants can continue using the existing editor.