Shopify Sidekick

Shopify Sidekick is the free, AI-enabled commerce assistant built directly into the Shopify admin. Rather than a bolt-on chatbot, Sidekick is positioned as a conversational layer over Shopify Magic (the umbrella name for AI features embedded throughout the platform): Magic provides the underlying AI tools, and Sidekick is the assistant that selects, combines, and executes them against a merchant's actual store data. It opens from the purple glasses icon in the admin, a dedicated Sidekick page, or the Shopify mobile app, with no separate setup or subscription required.

Sidekick launched in Shopify's Summer 2024 Edition as a largely Q&A-oriented assistant that answered questions and offered guidance, but adoption was initially limited. Shopify's Winter '26 Edition (January 2026) marked a significant re-architecture, turning it into an action-capable co-pilot that can execute multi-step tasks: drafting discount codes, organizing products into collections, generating custom apps, building Shopify Flow automations, and writing ShopifyQL queries against payments and web performance data, all while showing previews and requiring merchant confirmation before applying changes. The same release introduced Sidekick app extensions, which use the Model Context Protocol (MCP) to let Sidekick query and act on data inside third-party apps, with launch partners including Klaviyo, Judge.me, Yotpo, Loop, and Smile. The Spring '26 Edition (June 17, 2026) pushed Sidekick further, making it available on every screen of the admin, adding voice input (including on mobile and Apple Watch), and expanding third-party app connectivity to 15+ partners.

Sidekick is built for Shopify merchants of every size, from solo store owners handling admin chores themselves to larger teams where staff use it within their existing permission levels. Common use cases include generating SEO product descriptions, analyzing pricing strategy, building email campaigns, setting up low-stock alerts, auditing shipping configurations, and getting weekly performance summaries, all through natural-language prompts instead of navigating multiple admin screens manually. Because it ships as a core part of Shopify rather than an app to install, it has become many merchants' first hands-on experience with AI in their business.

Shopify Sidekick is included free with every Shopify plan at no additional cost, with no separate subscription or usage fee for the assistant itself. Availability of specific features and usage limits can vary by Shopify plan tier, merchant region, and feature rollout stage, so some capabilities may reach Basic, Grow, Advanced, or Plus merchants at different times. Since Sidekick is bundled into Shopify rather than sold separately, using it requires an active Shopify store subscription, which starts with Shopify's standard plans (a free trial and a promotional $1/month intro period are typically available for new stores).