Shopify Winter '26 Edition

The 'RenAIssance' edition signals Shopify’s transition from basic AI support to agentic technology that anticipates your needs and executes tasks independently. Listed below are the new updates for the Winter '26 Edition.

• Sidekick (The AI Coworker):

  This is the centerpiece of the update. Sidekick has evolved from a simple chatbot into a deep operational partner. It now features Sidekick Pulse, which proactively monitors your store’s data to surface high-impact recommendations without being asked. It can also build custom mini-apps, perform studio-quality image editing, and execute complex theme changes via natural language commands (e.g., "Make this button rounded").

• Agentic Storefronts:

  Shopify is moving commerce beyond its own platform. This section introduces tools that syndicate your product catalog directly into AI platforms like ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, and Perplexity. It allows these AI agents to act as "sales reps," answering customer questions and facilitating purchases within the chat interface.

• A/B Testing & Scheduling:

  Rollouts, which provides native A/B testing and scheduling for theme changes. The SimGym app acts as a flight simulator for your store, letting you test changes against AI customer personas to predict conversion impact.

• Retail & POS:

  Aimed at making physical retail more stable and integrated. The new POS Hub offers a hardware solution for wired connectivity (improving reliability over Wi-Fi). It also introduces Mobile Quick Sale (Tap to Pay on iPhone) and deeper integration for B2B and subscriptions at the point of sale.

• Automation:

  Shopify Flow updates that allow you to build complex automations just by describing them (e.g., "Tag any customer who spends over $500").

Lowering the "Technical Ceiling"

Previously, complex store changes required hiring developers or designers. This edition democratizes those capabilities:

• Conversational Development

  : You can ask Sidekick to build custom mini-apps (e.g., an internal task tracker or a B2B importer) or complex Shopify Flow automations just by describing the logic.
  

• No-Code Design

  : You can modify your theme (e.g., "Make all headers bold") or perform studio-quality photo editing (background removal, generative expansion) directly within the admin or mobile app.

Risk-Free Experimentation

Shopify has moved away from "guess-and-check" updates by building professional testing tools directly into the core platform:

• Shopify Rollouts

  : Native A/B testing is now built-in. You can test two different homepage layouts or pricing strategies and let Shopify automatically track which one converts better.
  

• SimGym

  : This is a "flight simulator" for your store. It uses AI agents trained on billions of real-world shopping sessions to simulate how customers might react to your changes before you go live.

Proactive Growth (Moving Beyond Search)

The release focuses on finding customers where they are already spending time:

• Agentic Storefronts

  : This is a major shift. Your product catalog is now syndicated to ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Microsoft Copilot. When someone asks an AI, "Find me a sustainable leather bag," your products appear directly in their chat with a way to buy.

• Sidekick Pulse

  : Instead of you digging through analytics, the AI monitors your data in the background and alerts you to opportunities (e.g., "You have a segment of customers ready for a win-back discount").

Operational Resilience & Scaling

For growing brands, the update provides the "boring" but essential tools needed to scale:

• POS Hub Hardware

  : A new piece of retail hardware that provides wired connectivity for card readers and printers, solving the common Wi-Fi "drop-out" issues in physical stores.
  

• Massive Variant Limits

  : Product variant limits have jumped from 100 to 2,048, finally supporting brands with complex catalogs (like apparel with dozens of size/color combos).
  

• Unified Finance

  : Automatic payout splitting in Shopify Balance allows you to automate your accounting by instantly moving percentages of every sale into "Tax," "Inventory," or "Savings" buckets.

• Reduced Technical Barriers

  : You no longer need to be a developer to build internal tools or a designer to edit product photos. Sidekick handles custom app generation and "studio-quality" image edits through simple voice or text prompts.
  

• Proactive Growth (Sidekick Pulse)

  : Instead of you digging through reports to find what’s wrong, the AI acts as a "business advisor that never sleeps," alerting you to low stock, trending products, or customer segments ready for a discount.
  

• Risk-Free Experimentation

  : With SimGym and Rollouts, you can test bold redesigns or new pricing strategies in a simulated environment or on a small percentage of traffic before committing to a full launch.
  

• Omnichannel Reach

  : The Agentic Storefronts benefit allows your brand to capture the growing "conversational commerce" market, ensuring your products are discoverable where people are already asking questions (like ChatGPT).
  

• Operational Efficiency

  : The ability to save "Sidekick Skills" means you can turn successful workflows or prompts into reusable shortcuts for your team, standardizing tasks and saving hours of manual work.
  

• Enhanced Reliability

  : For retail merchants, the POS Hub reduces the "it's not connecting" frustration of wireless hardware, ensuring that checkout lines keep moving during peak hours.