Merchants, meet your new AI co-founder

SHOPIFY

Merchants, meet your new AI co-founder

Shopify just rolled out a bunch of AI features to make life easier for its merchants.

The headline act is a new AI store builder that sets up a storefront from a single prompt, something as simple as “tennis gear and stylish athleisure”, and generates a fully built site, ready for custom tweaks.

It’s designed to save time so users can focus more on personalising their shop.

They’ve also updated Sidekick, the built-in AI assistant, with voice chat and screen sharing.

So if a merchant’s stuck on something like tariffs, Sidekick can talk them through it or point them to the right setting, even on mobile.

That feature’s now available in the Shopify app too.

Three things to know:

• Storefronts can now be built using a single prompt with no code or fuss.

• Sidekick can talk, screen share, and help out directly in the app.

• New “Horizon” theme comes with AI design tools and customisable building blocks.

Drag, drop, dominate

Another standout is the new “Horizon” theme, which includes AI support and drag-and-drop Theme Blocks, letting merchants change up their store design without touching a line of code.

If you want a banner with moving text, all you have to do is just describe it and the AI does the rest.

Shopify says Sidekick’s usage has more than doubled in 2025, and these tools hint at where the platform’s heading: more automation, less manual setup.

Merchants used to cry about coding. Now they just type “cute gymwear shop” and it appears. GOALS.