Shopify’s leaning hard into the AI revolution. The e-commerce giant says traffic to its stores from AI tools has surged sevenfold since January, while orders driven by AI-powered search have soared by 11 times.
During the company’s third-quarter earnings call, Shopify president Harley Finkelstein called AI the biggest technological shift since the internet and “an incredible tool” that empowers entrepreneurs. He said Shopify’s early investments in AI are positioning it to lead what he calls the next frontier of agentic commerce, a world where autonomous AI shopping agents help users discover and buy products seamlessly.
Shopify partnered with OpenAI in September to make its merchant ecosystem accessible directly from ChatGPT. The company is also working with Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot to embed shopping capabilities into conversational AI tools, making it easier for shoppers to buy within chat experiences rather than traditional storefronts.
According to Finkelstein, the company’s biggest AI advantage comes from its scale, data from millions of merchants and billions of transactions, paired with its “founder mode” approach that keeps innovation fast and iterative. “AI is not just a feature at Shopify,” he told investors. “It’s the engine that powers everything we build.”
Internally, Shopify has also been using its own AI assistant called Scout, which helps employees sift through hundreds of millions of pieces of merchant feedback to make product decisions. Scout pulls insights from usage data, reviews, social posts, support tickets, and even AI prompt logs from Shopify’s Sidekick assistant.
Finkelstein emphasized that these tools are part of a broader strategy to turn Shopify’s massive data signals into actionable intelligence. “We’re building the rails for agentic commerce,” he said, adding that 64% of shoppers in a recent Shopify survey said they’re likely to use AI in some form when making purchases.
While still early, the company sees endless possibilities in how agentic commerce will evolve. “There will be different permutations of how this plays out,” Finkelstein noted, comparing the current AI shift to previous transformations like social commerce and omnichannel retail. “It’s about commerce everywhere, not one versus the other.”
Shopify’s bet on AI seems well-timed. The company’s third-quarter revenue rose 32% year-over-year to $2.84 billion, beating analyst expectations. It reported a profit of $264 million, or $0.20 per share, though operating income of $434 million slightly missed Wall Street estimates. Despite the minor miss, Shopify’s push toward AI-driven growth signals a strong long-term play in transforming how consumers shop and how merchants sell online.
