Shopify is preparing for AI shopping agents to change everything, exec says

Shopify president Harley Finklestein outlined the company's strategy around AI shopping agents at the Upfront Summit. He argues that agentic AI will act as a personalized shopping layer, surfacing products based on user preferences rather than paid placement or mass-market defaults. With only 18% of U.S. retail happening online, Finklestein sees agentic commerce as a major growth driver. Shopify is actively building tools including an AI merchant assistant called Sidekick, an agent for customer support, and a protocol to help agents parse merchant product data. He believes agentic shopping will especially benefit smaller merchants who struggle with product discovery.