Shopify周四推出了一款名为Canvas的新建站工具，允许商家通过与人工智能对话来搭建自己的Shopify店铺。尽管在推出Canvas之前，Shopify就已经提供了一个相当实用的无代码构建器，但它需要通过重新排列模块化的区块来编辑所选的主题。然而，更深入的自定义则需要编辑代码或请开发人员来完成。
Shopify introduced a new site-building tool Thursday called Canvas that lets merchants set up their Shopify store by chatting with AI. While Shopify already offered a fairly capable no-code builder before Canvas, it involved editing a selected theme by rearranging modular sections and blocks. Deeper customizations, however, would require editing code or bringing in a developer.
现在，有了Canvas，商家只需与Shopify的AI智能体Sidekick聊天即可创建他们的网站。随着AI进行更改，Canvas会实时显示结果，让商家能够在店铺成型时整体查看其外观，或者放大以专注于某些细节。
Now, with Canvas, merchants simply chat with Shopify’s AI agent, Sidekick, to create their site. As the AI makes changes, Canvas displays the results in real time, allowing merchants to see how the store looks overall as it comes together or zoom in to focus on certain details.
值得注意的是，据Shopify称，这并非静态预览，而是正在渲染的店铺背后的真实代码。这意味着商家可以测试页面的完整交互性和动画效果，并查看页面在不同屏幕尺寸下的显示效果。Sidekick还会对工作成果进行截图，以便在网站更新时看到与商家相同的画面。
Notably, this isn’t a static preview, but the real code behind their store being rendered, according to Shopify. That means merchants can test the page’s full interactivity and animation, and view pages as they’d appear across different screen sizes. Sidekick also takes screenshots of the work so it can see the same thing the merchant sees as the site updates.
Canvas的推出是朝着这样一个未来迈出的更广泛步伐的一部分：构建网站不再需要直接编写代码。它与Wix、Squarespace、Webflow和Framer等公司的众多其他AI驱动的建站工具一起，加入了诸如Lovable和Replit等“氛围编程”（vibe-coding）平台的行列。
Canvas’s launch is part of a broader shift toward a future where building a website no longer requires coding it directly. It joins numerous other AI-powered site-building tools from companies like Wix, Squarespace, Webflow, and Framer, alongside vibe-coding platforms like Lovable and Replit.
如果商家愿意，仍然可以点击单个元素直接进行更改。但更有可能的是，他们只需在聊天中告诉Sidekick他们想做什么。
Merchants can still click on individual elements to make changes directly, if they choose. But more likely, they’ll just tell Sidekick in a chat what they want to do.
Sidekick本身并不是新事物，因为它已经被用于编写代码、构建应用、自定义主题和其他编辑工作。但它尚未被整合到一个像Canvas这样完整的建站产品中，用户可以在其中一次性查看整个店铺，并在更新网站实际文件的同时进行缩放和平移。
Sidekick itself is not new, as it’s already been used to write code, build apps, customize themes, and make other edits. But it had yet to be pulled together into a full site-building product like Canvas, where users can see the entire store at once and zoom and pan around while making updates to the site’s actual files.
为了实现这一点，Shopify赋予了Sidekick直接操作主题文件的能力，并简化了主题架构，以便Sidekick能够更轻松地理解和修改商店的结构、逻辑与设计。
To make this work, Shopify gave Sidekick the ability to work directly with the theme’s files and simplified the theme architecture so the store’s structure, logic, and design would be easier for Sidekick to understand and change.
该产品目前尚处于初期阶段，因此在某些方面仍需扩展和完善。例如，第三方主题支持、应用区块与扩展、多市场、多语言、版本推送以及主题更新等功能均未包含在首发版本中。此外，Canvas目前仅支持桌面端。不过，该公司向TechCrunch透露，这些都是公司计划在未来逐步支持的功能，只是产品目前还很新。
The product is in its early days, so there are areas where it will need to expand and improve. For instance, third-party theme support, app blocks and extensions, markets, translations, rollouts, and theme updates are all not part of the initial launch. Plus, Canvas is desktop-only. But the company told TechCrunch these are things the company plans to support over time; the product is just still new.
未来，随着该产品功能日益完善，Canvas可能会让那些既没有预算请开发人员和设计人员、也没有时间学习编程的人，更容易成为一名在线卖家。
In the future, as it becomes more robust, Canvas could make becoming an online seller more accessible to those who don’t have the budget for developers and designers, or the time to learn to code.