Shopify unveils Canvas for building online stores through AI chat — TechCrunch

Shopify has unveiled Canvas, a new tool for creating online stores through dialogue with artificial intelligence. Entrepreneurs can send requests to the AI agent Sidekick, which will make changes to a store’s website, while Canvas will display the result in real time, TechCrunch reports.

Real-time changes

Canvas displays not a static preview, but the website code that is actually rendered. According to Shopify, this makes it possible to test interactive elements and page animations, as well as view how a store looks on screens of different sizes.

Sidekick also takes screenshots during the process to see updates in the same way users see them. Store owners can, if they wish, click on individual website elements themselves and edit them directly, but they can also tell Sidekick in the chat what changes they want to make.

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Working with theme files

Before Canvas appeared, Shopify already offered a no-code editor: users could modify a selected theme by rearranging modular sections and blocks. Deeper changes required editing code or hiring a developer.

Sidekick had previously also been used to write code, create apps, configure themes, and make other changes. For Canvas, Shopify gave the agent the ability to work directly with theme files and simplified theme architecture so that AI could more easily understand and modify a store’s structure, logic, and design.

The company acknowledges that the product is at an early stage of development. At the same time, Canvas could make launching an online store more accessible to people who do not have the budget for designers and developers or the time to learn programming.