Shopify’s AI ‘Sidekick’ chatbot for merchants is now in early access
Shopify’s new AI “Sidekick” chatbot is officially launching in early access, the company said as part of its “2024 Summer Edition” updates announced on Monday.
Sidekick, which the company first revealed last year, functions as a support chatbot for merchants, helping them do things like make discount codes, generate reports about your store, or suggest blog post ideas. Sure, it sounds like pretty typical AI chatbot stuff, but it seems like it could be a useful way to get help or assistance, especially if Shopify continues to tailor the chatbot to fit merchant needs.
Sidekick is live across thousands of Shopify stores, but it’s currently limited to merchants who have English stores in North America, Vanessa Lee, Shopify’s vice president of product, says in an interview with The Verge. If you don’t have Sidekick and want to try it, you can sign up for the waitlist. And the company wants to make it available in other languages and other locales, Lee says.
Shopify is making a handful of other AI-focused announcements, too. One, AI-powered product categorization, seems like it could actually save merchants a lot of time. As you’re building a product listing, Shopify’s tech can automatically suggest the taxonomy about the product — taxonomy that’s used to make listings more easily discoverable — that might fit that product so that you don’t have to type it in yourself. If Shopify’s suggestions aren’t right, you can manually change things.
Another AI tool will offer suggested replies for customer chats that come in through Shopify Inbox. Right now, these replies are just suggestions, meaning merchants will have to be the ones to finalize and actually send a response. Lee says Shopify is open to the possibility of letting customers chat with an AI chatbot that speaks on behalf of the merchant, but for now, the company has chosen to keep the human in the loop “until we’re uber confident that nothing would happen.”
Shopify is also bringing its AI-powered image generator, which launched in January, to its iOS and Android apps and letting merchants use it in more places in their Shopify admin. The company says Shopify merchants have saved more than 1 million AI-generated images in six months.
Shopify’s new AI “Sidekick” chatbot is officially launching in early access, the company said as part of its “2024 Summer Edition” updates announced on Monday. Sidekick, which the company first revealed last year, functions as a support chatbot for merchants, helping them do things like make discount codes, generate reports…
Recent Posts
- Steam Machine and Steam Frame are coming ‘this summer’
- Valve says it’s ready to launch the Steam Machine this summer
- Best Buy slashes up to $400 off Apple tech in a limited-time sale — get AirPods, MacBooks, iPads and Apple Watches from $99.99
- The Instagram Plus subscription has officially launched
- Cyberdecks used to look like little laptops, but now they’re getting more personal
Archives
- June 2026
- May 2026
- April 2026
- March 2026
- February 2026
- January 2026
- December 2025
- November 2025
- October 2025
- September 2025
- August 2025
- July 2025
- June 2025
- May 2025
- April 2025
- March 2025
- February 2025
- January 2025
- December 2024
- November 2024
- October 2024
- September 2024
- August 2024
- July 2024
- June 2024
- May 2024
- April 2024
- March 2024
- February 2024
- January 2024
- December 2023
- November 2023
- October 2023
- September 2023
- August 2023
- July 2023
- June 2023