FLASH: Shopify's Spring Edition: Top Four Agentic Commerce Features Deep Dive
We go deep into four features with the most agentic commerce focus with an overview of the new feature and then a Q+A with a Shopify representative
Today, Shopify announced their Spring Edition and it’s chock full of Agentic Commerce features. If you want the total details of the release, they are provided here.
I was able to get an early look at the features for Retailgentic readers and then ask a Shopify representative for some clarifications on the features. We’ve identified four of the biggest features that focus on Agentic Commerce. For each of the four, we first cover it’s high-level capabilities (as briefly as possible, more detail is in the Spring Edition detailed post linked above) and then cover the Q+A provided by a Shopify spokesperson.
The Four Features (out of many more) that caught our eye are:
Agentic Admin
Shop Campaigns
Sidekick App Extensions
Shop App Personalized Shopping Assistant
Up first, Agentic Admin:
Agentic Admin
Spring Edition Feature: Managing Agentic Storefronts and Insights in Shopify Admin
For the first time, merchants have one place to manage Agentic Storefront channels in their admin, track performance across channels, and see actionable insights. What it unlocks:
Merchants can now see orders, sales and conversions from ChatGPT, Google AI Mode and Gemini, and Shop at a glance. Products are automatically accessible to AI channels through Shopify Catalog
Search intelligence shows the top AI queries in a merchant’s category, including which ones they’re ranking for, and where they’re not showing up paired with actionable insights
Knowledge Base shows merchants which questions AI agents are asking about their brand that haven’t been answered yet (like retail locations, bulk orders, and customer service) and lets them fill those answers in directly from the Admin.
Agentic Admin Q+A
Q: Search intelligence - Google announced AI Performance Insights at GML. This seems similar but across all answer engines. What can a merchant learn here?
There’s a natural comparison but the scope is different. Google’s AI Performance Insights shows how a brand performs across Google’s AI surfaces specifically, including share of voice against competitors. Shopify’s Agentic section in the admin looks across all the AI channels Shopify connects to: ChatGPT, Copilot, Google, and Shop.
Merchants can see the top AI queries in their category, whether their products rank for those queries, and where they’re not showing up. They can search any query against the Catalog API and see the exact same results AI agents see, including top-ranking products across all merchants, not just their own. They can also preview their actual ranking live in ChatGPT and Shop with one click.
Where Google’s tool focuses on visibility and share of voice within Google’s ecosystem, Shopify’s gives merchants cross-channel intelligence plus actionable next steps. If a product isn’t ranking, listing quality signals tell the merchant specifically what to improve: descriptions, images, reviews, pricing, options, policies, or titles. Sidekick can then recommend fixes. So it’s not just reporting, it’s a path from insight to action across every AI channel where their products could appear.
Q: Can you say more about where the data comes from - is this panel data or shared via Google/ChatGPT/etc.?
The search query data comes from Shopify Catalog. When a merchant searches a query in the Agentic section, they’re hitting the actual Catalog API, so results reflect what AI agents see when they search on behalf of buyers. Performance data (sessions, orders, conversion, sales) comes from Shopify’s own analytics, attributed by channel. AI channels don’t currently share impression data with Shopify, so the metrics are sessions, orders, conversion, and sales, not impressions or views.
Q: Knowledge Base recommends questions that aren’t answered - where do these answers go? (e.g. meta-data on the site, data feeds to the engines, on the human readable PDP?)
The Knowledge Base surfaces questions that AI agents are asking about the merchant’s brand that haven’t been answered yet, things like return policies, shipping details, retail locations, or bulk order info. Merchants answer them directly in the Admin through the Knowledge Base feature.
Those answers become the authoritative source that agents reference when buyers ask about the brand. Instead of an agent guessing or generating an answer from scraped web content, it pulls the merchant’s answer from the Knowledge Base. The answers live in Shopify and are available to agents through the same infrastructure that powers Catalog, so agents get facts, not guesses. Think of Knowledge Base is for shops as Catalog is for products. It’s a better alternative to scraping for this information.
Shop Campaigns - Growing your business with AI-driven campaigns
Shop Campaigns, Shopify’s performance marketing product, expands to three new surfaces: Pinterest, ChatGPT, and the open web via Microsoft Monetize. Merchants only pay when customers convert.
Shop Campaigns Q+A
Q: ChatGPT has rolled out a wide variety of ad formats, bid options, etc. What’s the matrix supported?
We have been experimenting with all formats of product catalog based advertising that OpenAI offers to determine what works best for our merchants. We don’t share specifics of the exact settings or formats that Shop Campaigns operates on, at a given point in time, on any platform.
Q: Is support there for Gemini’s various ad formats?
We advertise on Google across a variety of ad formats and campaign optimization capabilities. We don’t specifically target Gemini ad formats, but some of the ad formats that we leverage may lead to ads in Gemini.
Sidekick App Extensions
Sidekick App Extensions connect third-party apps to Sidekick, so merchants can get AI-powered answers and take action across their full tool stack from a single conversation.
Editorial Note: Sidekick is Shopify’s Merchant-facing, or ‘admin’ chat assistant/co-pilot capability that lets merchants get answers to questions and take some actions using a chat interface vs. traditional SaaS. This feature allows certain ‘apps’ from the Shopify ecosystem to ‘plug in’ to sidekick and also answer questions from the admin chat agent.
Sidekick App Extensions Q+A
Q: Any conceptual examples of the types of things Shopify would like to see innovated as an extension to sidekick? Any launch partners there?
App Extensions launched with 15+ partners including Klaviyo, Loop, Smile, Judge.me, Matrixify, Avia, Seguno and Checkout Links. Any developer in Shopify’s ecosystem can build one going forward.
Examples include:
Merchants using Klaviyo can ask “find my best-performing subject lines” and get real campaigns back, with open rates and click rates pulled from live data.
A merchant using Judge.me can ask Sidekick to “help me respond to recent low-star reviews,” and Sidekick opens the right page in the app with the review context and a draft reply already filled in. The merchant reviews and approves before anything posts.
Q: Is this the same framework and business model as the app store (15%) or is it more like an open MCP protocol type thing?
There is no additional cost for developers or merchants who use Sidekick app extensions. Developers configure their extension and merchants benefit from Sidekick’s ability to access data and actions from their apps.
Shop App Personalized Shopping Assistant
Shop App, Shopify's consumer shopping app, now has a shopper-facing personalized shopping assistant built into search. Buyers describe what they are looking for in plain language and get recommendations shaped by their real purchase history, browsing, and stated preferences. Each interaction sharpens the recommendations over time.
Shop App Personalized Shopping Assistant Q+A
Q: You’re announcing a personalized shopping assistant in the SHOP app - will this PSA be available for merchants to put on their store so they can have their very own ‘rufus or sparky?’
Agentic search on Shop is specific to the app and web that buyers can use throughout their shopping journey. Buyers can tap the search icon on Shop and ask it any question in natural language. Buyers can use search to discover and purchase products, ask about a merchant’s return policy and shipping updates, and more – all directly on Shop. Search learns a buyer’s taste over time and asks smart follow-up questions to provide the most personalized recommendations.
Shop search is built on Shopify’s commerce infrastructure — the Shopify Catalog, Shop Pay identity, buyer profiles, and MCP tools for cart, checkout, order lookup, and more.