Shopify has unveiled its Summer ‘25 Edition, ‘Horizons’, which introduces a fundamental shift in how merchants, large or small, can build and customise their online stores.
At the core of the 150+ upgrades is a major advance in the artificial intelligence (AI) features, including delivering AI integration for enhanced store creation. Shopify’s AI assists merchants in fine-tuning their designs quickly and effectively, leaving them free to focus on the creative aspects of their stores while the technology aids in layout adjustments and content generation.
AI has a crucial role to play in the future of commerce and is a core focus for Shopify, says Shaun Broughton, MD, Apac, at Shopify. “Our vision is to reimagine our platform around ‘declarative commerce’, where merchants simply express their goals, and our system charts the optimal path forward. This paradigm shift fundamentally changes how businesses operate. It lets merchants’ expertise, brand and products shine, shifting focus from time-consuming tasks to strategic growth opportunities.”
From the new AI-powered theme foundation, Horizon, to the powerful upgrades to Sidekick, Shopify’s AI commerce assistant, the company is embedding AI across the entire retail journey so merchants can spend less time completing repetitive tasks and focus on what they do best – innovating and delivering value for customers.
Broughton says Shopify sees AI as much more than a tool for automation. “AI is a strategic counsellor, sidekick and co-founder for merchants, helping them think through complex business problems and make informed decisions. By designing our AI to understand all things commerce, we can ensure it offers practical, relevant solutions that slot seamlessly into teams’ day-to-day operations while eliminating toil.”
Rafaelle Champagne, e-commerce manager at Australian women’s clothing boutique Blue Bungalow, says Shopify’s Sidekick has proven to be a game-changer for the company.
“What used to take me 15-20 minutes of report-building now happens in seconds. We’ve really embraced it to create QL queries and complex reports, easily segment our customers using natural language, and create collections with on-page and SEO descriptions that we can tweak to perfection.”
Getting quick insights on sales is a breeze with the tool. “A few weeks ago, when Cyclone Alfred hit, I needed to quickly understand how our sales were impacted in specific postcodes. Instead of manipulating spreadsheets and filters, I just asked Sidekick a few questions, made some minor tweaks to the parameters, and I had exactly what I needed.”
Shopify’s most comprehensive upgrade yet
Horizon ranks as one of Shopify’s most comprehensive UX-related upgrades, and merchants of all sizes will reap the benefits.
AI block generation in themes enables merchants to create new content blocks or transform existing ones into fresh layouts in Horizon themes, transforming what is possible on merchant storefronts. Now, merchants can create entirely new theme blocks using AI, by describing what they need, quickly and seamlessly turning a simple business description into a custom-designed store, dramatically reducing the expertise and time needed to launch.
“For solo operators, this step towards declarative commerce means they can achieve their design goals by creating sophisticated layouts with drag-and-drop simplicity, and our AI Store Builder enables merchants to input a few descriptive keywords to create unique store layouts,” explains Broughton.
“By eliminating the need to input code, we are giving entrepreneurs and teams the freedom to focus on creativity while democratising access to advanced design capabilities. So while we’re announcing lots of new tech, we are removing technical barriers and paving the way for retailers of all sizes to enhance their efficiency, growth and customer engagement.”
Retailers’ newly improved Sidekick
Sidekick, Shopify’s AI-powered commerce assistant, can now connect multiple data sources, perform multi-step reasoning, and deliver complex analyses and actionable insights in a single interaction. Now available on the Shopify mobile app, Sidekick has been expanded to operate in 20 languages. With this Edition, merchants can voice chat and screen-share with the AI assistant, for instant help and advice on admin tasks.
Other Sidekick enhancements include:
- Advanced Reasoning Capabilities: Beyond answering basic questions, Sidekick now identifies underlying causes of business challenges, recommends preventative strategies, and delivers executable multi-step solutions. For example, when sales decline, Sidekick analyses inventory, marketing, and customer behaviour patterns to pinpoint causes and suggest targeted fixes.
- Advanced Technical Framework: Using multi-source analysis, Sidekick can pull data from sales metrics, inventory, and customer profiles simultaneously for holistic insights. Enhanced segmentation capabilities are driven by new syntax improvements to enable more nuanced customer categorisation, allowing merchants to target specific audiences with unprecedented precision. And through contextual learning from each interaction, Sidekick is constantly refining its responses.
- Integrated Image Generation: Merchants can now create polished imagery directly through Sidekick, granting entrepreneurs more accessibility to image tools.
While the benefits for time-poor entrepreneurs are clear, Broughton argues that Sidekick will significantly benefit every user, all the way up to enterprise retailers. “With our enhanced AI tools, they’ll be able to streamline time-consuming workflows and access instantaneous insights based on first-party data so that they can take action with the agility of a startup.”
Knowledge Base app optimises presence
Finally, Shopify has unveiled its AI-powered first-party Knowledge Base app to help merchants optimise their presence across AI shopping platforms and improve customer self-service.
AI shopping agents are changing the way people discover brands and buy products. Shopify’s Knowledge Base app gives merchants control over how their brand appears in AI shopping conversations. It allows them to customise automatically generated store facts and add unique FAQs highlighting their value proposition.
As AI shopping assistants become mainstream discovery channels, this app functions as “SEO for AI conversations,” ensuring merchants’ unique selling points are accurately represented when shoppers ask questions through platforms like Claude or ChatGPT.
Merchants gain valuable insights into what potential customers are asking about their business, with analytics showing which facts are most frequently accessed and on which AI platforms.
Broughton says that by bridging the gap between traditional e-commerce and emerging AI shopping channels, Shopify is helping its merchants to capture sales opportunities in this rapidly evolving landscape while maintaining brand control.
