TORONTO — Shopify Inc.'s latest round of product developments are leaning on artificial intelligence to help merchants and developers create everything from online stores to shopping assistants.
The technology figures into many of the 150 product launches or enhancements the e-commerce software company announced Wednesday through its semi-annual Editions showcase.
Shopify said the updates are part of a "broader shift" it's making toward "declarative commerce, where business owners simply express their goals, and AI handles the rest, freeing entrepreneurs to focus on creativity and growth rather than technical complexity."
Some of the buzziest changes target Sidekick, a tool it debuted in 2023 for some merchant customers to ask questions about their business operations.
With the chatbot now equipped with advanced reasoning capabilities, Shopify's vice-president of product Vanessa Lee says merchants can turn to Sidekick with more practical questions like, "My sales dropped last month — what caused that?"
Sidekick will then trawl through the store's analytics, including sales figures, order history, product performance and customer purchase patterns. From there, it will calculate things like sales declines and revenue comparisons over specific time frames and can offer breakdowns based on specific geographies, customer segments or sales channels.
Lee said the idea is to produce data that points to exactly what is going wrong, so merchants can determine how to turn things around.
If the merchant thinks discounts or marketing campaigns is the answer, Sidekick can guide them through the process. If they want to sell across borders or target new customer segments, the tool is capable of setting them up for that as well.
Sidekick, which is being upgraded to support voice chat and screen sharing, can also come in handy when merchants need art. The tool now has image generation capabilities, allowing users to type in a description of a photo they want to create and within moments, be sent that image back.
In addition to Sidekick, Shopify is also deploying AI within its other software, so merchants can input a few descriptive keywords to instantly design online stores and all the images and text that go with them.
Developers, who make their money selling tools that plug into Shopify's software, will also see a boost from AI.
They will now be able to develop AI-powered shopping assistants with real-time access to Shopify data. The capability is being built on Anthropic’s Model Context Protocol, an open standard for connecting AI assistants to the systems where data lives.
In Shopify's case, developers will be able to use third-party AI agents to seamlessly search product catalogs, manage carts, access customer orders and retrieve accurate store policies, to personalize conversations assistants have with customers.
Rick Watson, founder of RMW Commerce Consulting, saw the updates as a sign that Shopify "is moving ahead fast" on AI, but said it will be years until the company really reaps some of the benefits from developments like the model context protocol.
He felt the ultimate goal of many of Shopify's changes was to eliminate a merchant's need to buy a content management system — software that helps display, organize and modify content on websites — without needing extensive technical knowledge.
"They want anyone and any team to be able to manage the Shopify front-end without having to add in additional software," Watson said in an email.
Shopify's AI updates come a month after CEO Tobi Lütke told staff AI is a "fundamental expectation" for all employees and will be embedded into everything from performance reviews to product development.
Away from AI, Shopify said Wednesday that it has redesigned its point-of-sale app to make workflows more intuitive and upgraded its payments platform so merchants can use a single store to sell from multiple business entities globally.
The payments update removes the burden of duplicative admin systems and will help merchants accept more than 130 currencies and settle in up to eight, so they can minimize foreign exchange fees on payouts, refunds, chargebacks and supplier payments.
Watson saw the point-of-sale updates as being a way for Shopify "to catch up to more established players."
"While they are welcomed, there is nothing revolutionary here," he said.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 21, 2025.
Companies in this story: (TSX:SHOP)
Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press
