Shopify AI Tools in 2026: What Sidekick and Co. Can Do
Shopify’s built-in AI tools are Sidekick in the admin, text and image generation inside product and content pages, the Inbox agent for store chat, AI-generated free themes, and AI-powered storefront search. Shopify says many of its AI features cost nothing extra, with availability varying by plan, device and language. The table and limits below come from Shopify’s Help Center pages on Sidekick, product descriptions, Inbox, themes and search, read on October 23, 2026.
Built-in AI at a glance
| Tool | Where it lives | What it does | Where it stops |
|---|---|---|---|
| Sidekick | Chat on any admin page, desktop or mobile; text, voice or screen sharing | Analyzes data, manages orders, edits products, writes content, generates images and custom apps, works with third-party apps | Shows changes for your review before applying them; longer tasks run in the background and notify you |
| Sidekick skills | Sidekick chat | Saves a prompt you repeat so you can run it with a shortcut | Runs the saved prompt as written |
| Product description writing | Products > product > description toolbar icon | Drafts a description from a title and keywords | Desktop only; you are responsible for accuracy |
| Inbox agent | Inbox page | Answers customer questions on products, shipping, returns, sizing and policies from your catalog, policies, Knowledge Base and published pages | Opt-in; until you turn it on, conversations stay with your staff |
| AI-generated free theme | Shopify app, Online Store sales channel, or admin in a mobile browser | Generates up to 3 free personalized themes from a description of your business | No longer available from the desktop admin; on the Starter plan you can only use the Spotlight theme |
| Storefront search | Your online store | Predictive search and typo tolerance on AI-powered search infrastructure, on by default | Extra features need the Search & Discovery app |
Sidekick: five things to ask first
Sidekick works inside your store’s context, so ask for jobs you already do by hand. Five that cost nothing to try, because Sidekick shows the change before it applies it:
- “Show my best-selling products by units from the last 30 days and which ones are low on stock.” It reads your data and answers in the chat.
- “Which products have no description?” followed by “Draft descriptions for them from their titles and tags.” Fields it fills in are highlighted in purple for you to review.
- “Where do I add a refund policy, and what sections should it cover for a clothing store?” Shopify’s own launch checklist suggests this one.
- “Walk me through placing a test order and what I should confirm before I go live.”
- Anything you type twice: save it as a skill.
Sidekick uses past conversations and recent activity to personalize its answers over time, and it can generate images from a text prompt. Reference images must be under 5 MB, up to 3 files, in JPEG, PNG or WebP. Image generation has a monthly and a short-term limit that depend on your plan and are shared by everyone in the store.
Custom apps from a prompt
On the Grow, Advanced and Shopify Plus plans, Sidekick can also generate custom apps for your admin, and longer jobs keep running in the background after you close the chat. We build Shopify apps for a living, and our rule for generated apps is about who depends on them. An internal helper that only you and your staff use, such as a page that lists orders waiting on a supplier, is a fair job for a generated app: if it breaks, you notice and fix it. Anything a customer touches, or anything that changes prices, inventory or billing, deserves an app with a developer who answers support requests and keeps it working when Shopify changes its APIs. Ask Sidekick what the generated app can read and change before you install it, and remove it when the job is done.
AI for product content
For product descriptions, Shopify advises giving at least a product title and two features or keywords, and adding the customer, materials, intended use and any brand terms you want kept. Write the prompt in the language you want the description in; the output matches it. Shopify warns that generated text can include product benefits you never listed, and facts taken from similar products. Read each description against your own product data before you save, and check sizes, materials and claims first, since those are what a customer holds you to. Writing the brief for a product listing is covered in product listing optimization.
Limits and responsibility
Shopify’s Help Center says you are responsible for the accuracy of everything you publish, including generated text. Generated images can be unexpected or low quality, and an image stays private in your chat until you click Save to files. Sidekick presents changes for review, so keep that step on bulk edits: a changed price or a published draft is a customer-facing change. The Inbox agent talks to shoppers on your behalf, and Shopify separates what it says from how it says it. Facts such as return terms, shipping thresholds, business hours and sizing belong in your policies, pages, product data or the Shopify Knowledge Base app; the persona only sets tone and service style, and Shopify says facts added only to the persona are not treated as source information. Test the agent with real questions before you switch it on; training it is covered in AI customer service for Shopify. Search is covered in Shopify’s AI-powered search, and where Shopify itself is heading is in Shopify trends for 2026. More guides for running the store are in the running a store hub.
Frequently asked questions
Is Shopify Sidekick free? Shopify’s AI overview says many of its AI features are available at no additional cost, and that availability can vary by plan, device and language. The Sidekick pages do not list a price. Check your own admin for what your plan includes.
Can Sidekick edit my products? Shopify lists editing products among the tasks you can give it, and Sidekick presents the changes for your review before applying them. Keep that review step even for small batches, because an approved change is applied to your store data like any edit you make by hand.
What is Shopify Magic now called? Shopify Magic was the name for Shopify’s generative features, such as product descriptions. The Help Center pages read for this article route those features through Sidekick, and “Magic” survives only in page anchors such as #shopify-magic, so when an older article mentions Magic, look up the same feature under Sidekick.