This week in AI: Meta's Muse, Shopify Canvas and StatCan's numbers

Last week, two of the platforms Canadian small businesses already depend on made the same offer: let our AI do the work inside your accounts. Meta wants its agent connected to your books, your shop and your ads. Shopify wants its agent editing the code behind your storefront.

The third story is the context for both. Statistics Canada published new numbers on how many businesses actually plan to use AI, and the answer is more than a year ago, and still a minority.

Meta's Muse agent now works inside your business accounts

On September 29, Meta launched Muse for Small Business, in the US and in Canada. Muse is the personal AI agent Meta released earlier in September. An agent, in this sense, is software you give a goal to, which then works through the steps itself rather than answering one question at a time.

The business version adds connectors: links that let Muse read from, and work in, other software you use. The list includes Shopify, Intuit QuickBooks, Stripe, Klaviyo, Canva, Slack, Asana, Notion, Dropbox, Box and Zoom, along with your Instagram professional account, Facebook Pages and Meta ad accounts. Meta's own examples of what to ask it are "Analyze this year's sales, campaigns, and social and make me a growth plan" and "How was my business's financial performance this month?"

Meta says Muse is free for most of what people need, with subscription plans for more, and that "nothing publishes, sends, or spends without your approval."

Why it matters to a small business

This is the first agent from a company most small businesses already use every day that is built to sit across the whole business at once: the books, the shop, the ads and the inbox. That is the appeal. One question can draw on sales from Shopify, costs from QuickBooks and results from your Instagram ads, which today means three logins and a spreadsheet.

It is also the risk. The Next Web notes that Amazon blocked the consumer version of Muse from its store, citing concerns that the agent stored customers' login credentials, which Meta denies. Social Media Today put the open question plainly: how useful Muse is "hinges on how much people trust Meta to access their data through Muse tools."

Meta's announcement does not say whether data from connected business accounts is used to train its models or to target ads. That is the question to have answered before connecting anything that holds customer information. Under PIPEDA, Canada's federal private-sector privacy law, you remain responsible for customer information you hand to a service provider.

What to do

1. If you want to try it, start with the Meta accounts it already sits next to: Instagram insights and your ad account. Ask it to explain what worked last quarter.
2. Hold off on connecting QuickBooks, Stripe or your email until you have read the safety documentation linked from Meta's announcement and found a clear answer on training and ad use.
3. Keep the approval step meaningful. Read every draft before you let it send. An approval you click without reading is not a control.

Shopify's AI can now edit your store's code while you watch

On October 1, Shopify introduced Canvas, a new workspace for designing an online store with Sidekick, Shopify's built-in AI agent. You see every page of your store side by side, ask Sidekick for a change in plain words, and watch the change appear across phone and desktop layouts.

The difference from earlier AI design tools is that Sidekick now writes and edits the store's actual theme files, the code that controls how your store looks, rather than only changing settings. Shopify says Sidekick checks its own code and looks at screenshots of the result before handing the page back. Its director of product, Ben Sehl, said a merchant "can build a fully custom store in twenty minutes."

Shopify says Canvas is rolling out over the coming days, does not yet replace the existing theme editor, and still has gaps to close. It did not mention a price.

Why it matters to a small business

Until now, a custom-looking Shopify store usually meant paying a developer or an agency. Canvas makes that part much cheaper. eCommerce Fastlane's analysis makes the useful point about what is left: "Canvas makes the code cheap. What it cannot make cheap is knowing what your store should feel like."

The same piece lists the practical catches. Canvas launched in early access, on desktop only and for some stores. Support for third-party themes is incomplete, it is unclear what happens when a theme developer ships an update over AI-edited code, and generated layouts can make pages heavier and slower. And it arrived about eight weeks before Black Friday.

What to do

1. Do not let any AI redesign your product or checkout pages before the holidays. A change you have not tested is a bet placed in your busiest month.
2. If you want to try Canvas, duplicate your live theme first and work on the copy. Publish only after you have checked the result on a phone.
3. If you bought a premium theme from a third-party developer, ask them whether AI edits will survive their next update.

One in four Canadian businesses now plans to use AI

On October 1, Statistics Canada published its latest figures from the Canadian Survey on Business Conditions. Of businesses with employees, 25.2% said they plan to use AI to produce goods or deliver services in the next 12 months. A year earlier that figure was 14.5%, and two years ago 10.6%.

The surprise is who moved. Businesses with 1 to 4 employees went from 14.2% planning to use AI a year ago to 25.6% now, slightly ahead of firms with 5 to 19 employees.

Among businesses that plan to use AI, the most common uses are data analytics (41.7%) and large language models (39.3%), the kind of AI behind ChatGPT, Copilot and Gemini. Virtual agents and chatbots come third, at 31.8%. By industry, professional, scientific and technical services lead at 54.8%. Retail trade sits at 16.0% and accommodation and food services at 17.4%.

Why it matters to a small business

Two things. First, plans have tended to turn into use: StatCan notes that more businesses reported using AI than had planned to a year before. If your competitors are in the quarter that plans to use it, many of them probably will.

Second, more than half of businesses say they have no plans at all, and another 22.1% are unsure. Not using AI yet is still the most common position in Canada. If you are there, you are not behind the market. You are in it.

The limits: the survey ran from July 2 to August 6, 2026, covers businesses with employees only, and asks about intentions. It measures whether a business plans to use AI, not whether it pays off.

What to do

Nothing urgent. If you are in one of the industries near the top of the list, it is worth knowing which of your competitors have started, and on what.

What we're watching

• Muse's data terms. We want to see Meta state plainly whether connected business data trains its models or shapes its ads, and whether Canada's privacy regulators take an interest.
• Canvas at full release. Price, plan limits and what happens to AI-edited themes when they are updated.
• StatCan's next quarter. Whether the jump in plans among the smallest businesses shows up as actual use.

Where to start

1. Write down which of your business accounts you would be comfortable letting any AI agent read, and which you would not. Decide that before a tool asks you.
2. If you sell on Shopify, put "no theme changes until January" on the calendar, and test Canvas on a duplicate theme if you are curious.
3. If you are in the half of Canadian businesses with no AI plans, pick one repetitive task this month and see whether a tool you already pay for can do it.

If you would like a second opinion on any of these, you can book a short call with Trimotech.