Shopify unveiled Canvas on October 1, 2026, a visual design workspace that allows merchants to build their online stores by chatting with Sidekick, the company’s AI commerce assistant. Every change renders in real time directly from theme code, giving users an accurate preview before committing. According to Shopify’s Ben Sehl, creating a fully custom store now takes around 20 minutes instead of two weeks of coding. Canvas is not yet a full replacement for the existing editor: it lacks support for third-party theme app extensions as well as Rollouts, Markets, and Translations tools, which are critical for merchants operating internationally. In Q1 2026, weekly active shops using Sidekick grew 385% year-over-year, and approximately 42% of Shopify merchants were using the company’s AI features.
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