Shopify’s New Canvas Lets Founders Design Their Store With AI. Here’s How Beauty Brands Can Use It
Canvas puts every page of a Shopify store in one workspace and lets founders redesign it in conversation with Sidekick, just in time for the holiday season.
By Black Beauty Founders Staff
Shopify has launched Canvas, a new design workspace where merchants build and redesign their online store with Sidekick, Shopify’s AI agent. Here is what Canvas does, what to know before you use it, and how beauty founders can make it work for their brand.
Quick Links
What Canvas Does
Launched October 1, Canvas lays out every page of a store together, so founders can pan across the whole site to see how it feels, then zoom in on the details. Founders can click any element to edit it directly or ask Sidekick in chat, and the changes appear in real time on a live render of the store’s actual code, not a static mockup.
Shopify says Sidekick asks questions, proposes design directions and remembers preferences as it works. Ben Sehl, Shopify’s Director of Product and co-founder of Kotn, said an entrepreneur can now build a fully custom store in about twenty minutes. Sidekick made more than 25 million theme edits in the first half of 2026 alone, according to Shopify.
What to Know Before You Start
Canvas is early, and Shopify says it is not replacing the existing editor yet. At launch, it works with Shopify’s own themes and custom themes, while Theme Store themes, app blocks, translations and Markets are not yet supported, and themes edited in Canvas do not receive automatic theme updates. If your store depends on a Theme Store theme or several apps, duplicate your theme and experiment there first.
Our Take for Beauty Founders
For founders across the Black Beauty Founders ecosystem, the opportunity is a store that looks as premium as the product, without a developer budget. Here is where we would start.
Brief Sidekick like a creative director. Describe the feeling, not just the fix: luxe and minimal, warm and joyful, clean and clinical. Share your brand colors and fonts, and name the sites you admire.
Check every page at phone size. Canvas lets you preview key pages at different screen sizes. Make sure product photos, shade swatches and ingredient details read clearly on a phone, where so much beauty browsing happens.
Show her texture and her tone. Use real product photography and imagery that reflects your customer’s hair texture and skin tone on your homepage and product pages.
Build your holiday look now. Test gift sets and holiday collections on a duplicate theme before peak season, then publish when it is ready.
Keep the story yours. AI can redesign a page fast, but your founder story, product claims and ingredient language should come from you. Review every word before you publish.
Shopify says it built Canvas because entrepreneurs flourish when their store reflects their vision. For Black beauty founders, it lowers the cost of a store that looks like the brand they are building. Black Beauty Founders will keep covering the tools that help founders sell beautifully.
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