Shopify Sidekick is the AI assistant built into your Shopify admin. It answers sales questions, fills in product and order forms, writes copy, builds small admin apps and suggests next steps. Nothing it prepares reaches your store until you approve it.
Plenty of merchants already use it. On August 5, 2026, Shopify President Harley Finkelstein told the second-quarter earnings call that Sidekick handled nearly 34 million conversations. Daily active merchants using it were up 3.6 times on a year earlier. The useful question now is what to hand over and what to check, because a wrong price still reaches your customers.
On this page
- How Sidekick works in your admin
- What Sidekick remembers about your store
- What can Shopify Sidekick do for your store?
- How skills and connected apps cut repeat work
- What Sidekick Pulse puts on your Home page
- Building custom apps with Sidekick
- Is Shopify Sidekick free, and what does each plan get?
- Shopify Sidekick vs Shopify Magic and other Shopify AI tools
- What Sidekick can't do
- Which Sidekick changes still need a human check
- Who gets the most from Shopify Sidekick
- Where to start with Shopify Sidekick this week
How Sidekick works in your admin
Sidekick runs in the Shopify admin on desktop and inside the Shopify app on phones and tablets. On desktop, click the Sidekick icon or go to admin.shopify.com/sidekick. There's nothing to install. It doesn't run in the admin through a mobile browser, so on a phone, use the app.
You type or speak a request in plain words. For a multi-step job, Sidekick plans the steps, builds a to-do list and fills in each form for you to review. Longer tasks keep running after you close the chat, and Sidekick tells you when the result is ready.
Each message can carry up to 10 files of 15 MB or less, like a CSV price list or a photo. Type @ and a name to point it at one order, product, collection or customer.
Sidekick follows your store's language settings. Voice mode works on desktop, on mobile and on Apple Watch, and it replies in the language you speak. On the watch it only answers questions and can't change your store. Screen sharing, where Sidekick guides you on your own screen, is in early access and needs a desktop browser.
What Sidekick remembers about your store
Past conversations stay in Sidekick's memory for about three months, and it can refer to your admin activity from about the last 12 hours. That saves you repeating yourself. Chats in the theme editor don't go into memory.
Ask Sidekick to summarize what it remembers, or tell it to forget a detail. You can switch memory off for one chat, but you can't switch it back on for that chat, so open a new one if you change your mind.
What can Shopify Sidekick do for your store?
Shopify's Sidekick help pages split its work into store questions, form filling, content, apps and automation. The table uses Shopify's own example prompts and adds what to check first.
| Job | Example prompt from Shopify | What to check before you save |
|---|---|---|
| Sales reports | "Compare my sales this quarter to the same quarter last year" | The date range and filters. Sidekick writes a ShopifyQL query and can show it as a line, donut or bar chart. |
| Order edits | "Add 2 more units of the blue t-shirt to this order and apply a 10% discount" | Line items, quantities and the new total. Nothing changes until you click Update order. |
| Draft orders | "Create a draft order with 2 blue t-shirts for John Doe and apply a 10% discount" | The customer and the price. The draft saves only when you click Save. |
| Product SEO | "Rewrite the page title and meta description for @PRODUCT, and keep the title under 60 characters" | The fields marked in purple, plus any claim about materials, sizing or results |
| Store policies | "Insert the return policy template and fill in my store's address" | Every promise in the text, because you have to follow what you publish |
| Theme changes | "Add a slideshow section to the top of my home page" | How the new section looks on a phone |
Writing goes well past product descriptions. Sidekick drafts blog posts, store pages and Shopify Messaging emails, where it can also change fonts, colors and buttons. Good copy won't help if the email lands in spam, so check the sender setup in our email deliverability guide.
It makes images for sale banners and emails too, and since October 24, 2026 it can give them transparent backgrounds. Shopify warns that generated images can come out odd or low quality.
Everyone in the store shares two image limits. The monthly one resets on the first of each month, and the short-term one frees up gradually, often within a few minutes. Your plan sets both, and Shopify doesn't publish the numbers.
It also sets up the tools around a sale. Describe a discount, customer segment, custom report, metafield or Shopify Flow workflow, and Sidekick sets it up, then waits for your OK. It can write and run its own code to forecast or compare store data. Some stores don't have that option.
How skills and connected apps cut repeat work
Anything you ask every week can become a skill. A skill is a saved instruction you run by typing / and its name, and a store can hold up to 50 of them, or 25 in some stores.
Say every Monday you compare last week's sales with the week before and write three lines for your team. Saved as /weekly-sales, that routine becomes one shortcut, and your Monday starts with reading the answer instead of building it.
Sidekick can also work through your installed apps. Developers add Sidekick app extensions so it can search an app's data or suggest actions inside it. Shopify's developer docs cap this at 20 connected apps per user on a store. Sidekick asks before it uses a third-party app, so pick "Yes, and don't ask again" only for apps you trust with that job.
Ask for a new app by name or goal, and Sidekick lists matches with ratings and any Built for Shopify label. Then it can start the install from the chat.
What Sidekick Pulse puts on your Home page
Sidekick Pulse is the part of Sidekick that works without being asked. It studies your store data and shows up to five suggested actions as cards on your admin Home page. Pick a card and Sidekick opens a chat with a to-do list, and each step waits for your approval.
Not every store has it. Shopify's Help Center lists Pulse as early access for certain merchants only. Your store needs recent sales and Shopify Network Intelligence turned on, and you need to be the owner or a staff member with admin access.
Dismiss a card that doesn't fit with the X. Adding a reason is optional, and Pulse uses it to shape later cards.
Read a Pulse card like advice from a new hire who has studied every report but never met a customer. It can't know that a product sells slowly because the supplier shipped late, or that a collection retires next month. Delete the steps that don't fit and approve the rest one at a time.
Building custom apps with Sidekick
Describe a small admin app in plain words, and Sidekick writes it for you. Shopify's examples include a reorder planner based on sales velocity, a tool that creates discounted checkout links and QR codes, and a team task tracker. These apps run only inside the admin, so customers never see them.
Shopify said on the same call that merchants built more than 36,000 of these apps in the second quarter of 2026, up from 12,000 in the first. The app generation help page sets firm limits:
- Only the Grow, Advanced and Shopify Plus plans can generate apps.
- Staff need the Develop permission under App development.
- Generation works only from Sidekick in a desktop web browser.
- Hourly and weekly limits cover the whole store. They count how much work Sidekick does, so complex apps use more.
- No generated app can reach your theme, checkout or customer account apps.
A generated app uses the Admin API for orders, products, customers, discounts, content such as blog posts, and analytics. So it can change data your customers see. Test it on three or four records you can check by hand before you rely on it. Each update saves a new version, and you can restore an older one.
Generated apps stay out of your storefront, but apps you installed years ago may not. If yours still load scripts through script tags, read what the Shopify script tag deprecation means for your store.
Is Shopify Sidekick free, and what does each plan get?
Yes, Sidekick costs nothing extra. Shopify's Sidekick product page says your plan includes it. Features and usage limits vary by plan, and the plan matters most for the extras in this table.
| Feature | Who gets it | Limits |
|---|---|---|
| Chat, reports, forms and writing | All plans | Usage limits vary by plan |
| Image generation | All plans | Monthly and short-term limits set by your plan |
| Custom app generation | Grow, Advanced and Shopify Plus | Hourly and weekly store-wide limits, desktop browser only |
| Deposits on draft orders | Shopify Plus | Only when the draft already has payment terms |
| Sidekick Pulse | Certain merchants in early access | Needs recent sales, admin access and Shopify Network Intelligence |
| Screen sharing | Early access | Desktop browser only |
If you haven't picked a platform, weigh this in the Shopify vs WooCommerce choice for a small store.
Shopify Sidekick vs Shopify Magic and other Shopify AI tools
Shopify Magic is the name Shopify gave its built-in AI features, such as writing product descriptions in the product editor. The Help Center now groups them under AI-powered tools, and the Generate text icon on product and blog pages runs through Sidekick. Even shopify.com/magic now opens the Sidekick page. So for most merchants, Sidekick is the Shopify AI assistant, and most writing and image features live inside it.
A few Shopify AI tools work outside the chat:
- Shopify Inbox suggests instant answers and replies for your customer chats.
- The theme library can generate a free theme from a description of your business.
- Tinker, a free mobile app, has more than 100 AI tools for images, video and brand assets.
You can also connect ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini and other outside AI tools to your store. You pick what data each one sees. All of this is for your own admin work. Selling to shoppers inside AI chats is a separate topic, covered in our guide to agentic commerce.
What Sidekick can't do
Shopify lists five things Sidekick can't do:
- Talk to your customers or handle support for you.
- Share private data from other merchants.
- Change your store without your approval.
- Edit images inside a theme or your product list.
- Run in the admin on a mobile browser.
Sidekick also can't change your privacy policy, and it can't edit any policy while "Use automated policy" is on. In the checkout and accounts editor, it answers questions and links you to settings, but you make the changes yourself.
For EU and UK stores, Sidekick explains VAT and the One Stop Shop scheme, but it doesn't decide whether you must register or what you owe. That call belongs to you and your accountant.
If you want a tool that answers shoppers at night, Sidekick isn't it. Customer chat needs another tool. Shopify's changelog lists two new Sidekick features in October 2026 alone, so check the date on anything you read about it, this page included.
Which Sidekick changes still need a human check
Every change waits for your approval, so the review step is built in. The risk is approving on autopilot. Shopify's best practices for its AI tools put it plainly:
"You're responsible for the changes that you accept, so review the results before you approve them, especially for anything that affects what your customers experience or buy."
The same page warns that one request won't always give the same result twice. Put these checks in front of whoever approves Sidekick's work:
- Discounts and prices: the percentage, the dates and exactly which products or collections they cover.
- Order edits, line by line, with the new total.
- Product copy, where claims about materials, sizes or care need someone who knows the product.
- Return and shipping policies, since you have to keep those promises.
- Anything about VAT or sales tax.
- The date range and filters behind any report you'll act on.
- Which installed app Sidekick wants to use, and what a generated app can write to.
A small slip can grow fast. Say a store has two collections, Summer with 40 products and Summer Sale with 400. The owner asks for 15% off Summer, and the draft points at Summer Sale. Approve it unread and ten times as many products go out at 15% off.
On a team, decide who approves price and order changes, then set staff permissions to match.
Who gets the most from Shopify Sidekick
New store owners use it most for setup. In a merchant's first 30 days, about half of Sidekick chats cover store setup, design and theme configuration. Shopify said its onboarding guidance led to an 8% increase in new merchants reaching five orders within 15 days.
Established stores use it for numbers. Among merchants five years in, setup drops to about 8% of conversations, while analytics and reporting pass 40%. For a store with years of data, that's the best use: a fast answer about your own sales.
App developers and agencies have a stake too. Finkelstein described merchants acting through extensions to apps such as Klaviyo without leaving Sidekick. If you build a Shopify app, Sidekick is now one more place your users will look for your features.
If you're moving a custom PHP store over, plan for Sidekick in the PHP to Shopify migration. Put product data in standard fields and metafields, where Sidekick can read it.
Where to start with Shopify Sidekick this week
Build trust in steps, so each new kind of task rests on work you've already checked:
- Ask read-only questions first, such as last month's sales by product or this quarter's returns.
- Use it for first drafts of product descriptions, a blog post or an email, and edit before you publish.
- Save the requests you repeat as skills.
- Let it draft orders and discounts, and read every purple field first.
- Try Pulse and app generation once your store and plan qualify.
Some jobs fall outside Sidekick, such as a chat assistant for shoppers or a Sidekick extension for an app you sell. For those, talk to our AI development team about a custom Shopify AI build.
Frequently asked questions
Yes. Sidekick comes with every Shopify plan at no extra charge, but features and usage limits change by plan. Custom app generation needs the Grow, Advanced or Shopify Plus plan, and image generation runs against monthly and short-term caps that your plan sets.
Sidekick Pulse is an early-access feature that suggests up to five actions as cards on your admin Home page. It reads your store data, needs recent sales, owner or admin access and Shopify Network Intelligence, and you approve each step before anything changes.
Shopify Magic was the name for Shopify's built-in AI writing and image features. Most of those now run through Sidekick, the chat assistant in your admin, and Shopify's Magic web page opens the Sidekick page. Shopify Inbox reply suggestions and the Tinker app stay separate.
No. Sidekick works only for you and your staff inside the Shopify admin, and Shopify says it can't talk to customers or handle support. For customer chat, Shopify Inbox can suggest instant answers and replies, or you can add a separate chat tool.
Yes, in the Shopify app on phones and tablets, and voice mode also runs on Apple Watch for short answers. It doesn't work in the admin through a mobile browser, and app generation and screen sharing need a desktop browser.