Shopify Sidekick Gets a Major Reasoning Upgrade, Plus Free Image Generation

Shopify, a leading commerce technology company, has today unveiled enhanced capabilities for its AI-powered commerce assistant, Sidekick. These include advanced, multi-step reasoning and image generation, making it an indispensable tool to help merchants start, run, and grow their businesses. 

“While entrepreneurial momentum continues to thrive in the ANZ market, many retailers are still weighed down by repetitive tasks that hinder growth,” said Shaun Broughton, Managing Director APAC at Shopify. “With the latest Sidekick upgrade, our goal is to give our merchants smarter, more intuitive AI tools that help them focus on building their business and strengthening customer relationships. We want to make advanced technology feel simple and accessible—so every entrepreneur, no matter their technical expertise or economic situation, can move forward with confidence.”

The upgraded Sidekick introduces several breakthrough capabilities:

• 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.
• Multi-source analysis, with Sidekick pulling data from sales metrics, inventory, and customer profiles simultaneously for holistic insights.
• Enhanced segmentation capabilities: New syntax improvements enable more nuanced customer categorisation, allowing merchants to target specific audiences with unprecedented precision.
• Self-improving responses: Sidekick continuously refines responses through contextual learning from each interaction.
• Integrated image generation: Merchants can now create polished imagery directly through Sidekick,  making this more accessible for all entrepreneurs. 

This update aligns with Shopify's vision of "declarative commerce," where merchants simply express their goals and the system charts the optimal path forward. By handling complex analyses and routine tasks, Sidekick allows entrepreneurs to dedicate more time to strategic initiatives and creative development.

Sidekick's enhanced capabilities are available now to all Shopify merchants as part of the platform's growing suite of AI-powered commerce tools. This update follows Sidekick's recent expansion to all 20 languages supported in the Shopify admin; merchants can now interact with Sidekick in their preferred language without manual switching. 

Powered by Shopify Magic, Sidekick is trained to know all of Shopify and is designed to operate within the context of a specific merchant's shop to generate highly personalised support for various tasks. Sidekick is an important part of Shopify's growing suite of AI tools, which includes:

• Suggested Replies for Shopify Inbox: AI-generated responses to customer inquiries
• Media Editor: AI image generation tool that automates background removal and replacement
• AI-Suggested Product Taxonomy: Automatic recommendations for product categories and attributes