Shopify launches Canvas, a conversational AI design tool

Shopify has launched Canvas, a tool that lets merchants view every page of an online store together, zoom into details and use conversational AI to make changes directly on the pages.

The workspace is designed to help users assess a store’s overall look, spot branding inconsistencies and work on them in detail. Canvas works with Shopify’s AI assistant, Sidekick, and is intended to support creativity and collaboration across a store’s pages.

Ben Sehl, Shopify’s Director of Product, said that when he built Kotn 12 years ago, he knew how to code but still needed two weeks to get a rough store working. He said an entrepreneur on Shopify can now build a fully custom store in 20 minutes, and described Canvas as a way to help entrepreneurs bring their ideas for a store closer to reality.

According to a press release shared with TechRadar Pro earlier in the week, Canvas is in the early stages of rollout and is expected to become available to users over the coming days. For now, it will be offered alongside Shopify’s existing theme editor as a hybrid approach to website editing.