There's a part of the system, but they're not "more" (more being the keyword I used) than Azerite armor was.
Azerite armor was a feature from 110-120 for a start, as where conduits are only accessible and useable at Level 60 (max level). Conduits apply additional ways of customizing your gear, compared to Azerite armor, which *was* your gear. Conduits are within part of a core feature of Shadowlands, but they're not as much of a core feature like Azerite armor was. All that needs adding is basically the items, which I'm sure internally are there (as beta builds are always a few builds behind what they have internally). The items are basically just additional stats anyway, which can be easily changed and tuned. It's nothing major