Shopify Sidekick, explained (what it can and cannot do)

The short version

Sidekick is Shopify’s AI assistant, sitting inside the admin. There is no separate install. There is no second bill. The purple glasses icon opens a chat in plain language, the same way a sharp coworker would take a question.

Sidekick can see the store. That is the difference between Sidekick and ChatGPT. Generic AI guesses from the open web. Sidekick answers from orders, products, and settings, and can take the next step in the admin instead of handing back a to-do list.

Shopify says Sidekick is included with every plan, with features and usage limits that still vary. A Shopify survey in 2025 found that 75 percent of store owners already use some kind of AI. Sidekick is the assistant that already has the keys to the shop.

Those keys have limits. Both sides of that line are worth naming.

What is new

Sidekick has been around since 2023. The version merchants are meeting now is a different tool.

In Winter ’26, Shopify gave Sidekick a new job: stop waiting to be asked. Sidekick Pulse watches the store in the background and surfaces the next move, with the data behind that suggestion. The same edition let Sidekick build Shopify Flow automations from a sentence, edit themes and emails in chat, and generate simple custom apps for the admin.

In Spring ’26, Sidekick stopped living in a single chat box. Merchants can type or talk to Sidekick on any screen of the Shopify app. Sidekick keeps working after the window closes. Sidekick can create customers from a description. Sidekick can generate test events for a Flow automation so the logic can be checked. And Sidekick started talking to other apps, beginning with tools a lot of stores already run: Klaviyo, Judge.me, Loop, and Smile.

What Sidekick can do

Five jobs cover most of the product, not fifty features.

Questions about the live store. “What sold last week?” “Which products are about to stock out?” “Who are the best customers this quarter?” Sidekick can write the ShopifyQL behind those answers, including payments and web performance data.

Draft copy. Product descriptions, social posts, discount copy, a weekly summary. Sidekick already knows the catalog, so SKUs do not need to be pasted into another tool.

Admin busywork. A discount. A collection. A customer or a B2B company from a description. Shopify’s own prompt list is full of this kind of work: shipping audits, low-stock alerts, email campaign outlines.

Flow automations. A rule described in a sentence. “Tag orders under three items as small.” “Email the merchant the first time a variant drops below five.” Sidekick builds the workflow. The merchant opens the workflow, tests the workflow, and turns the workflow on. Shopify is explicit that generated workflows start inactive, and that a review comes before those workflows touch live orders.

Small internal apps. On Grow and above, a merchant can ask for a single-page tool in the admin: a reorder list, a returns checker, a customer-tier board. Sidekick writes the code, builds the screen with Shopify’s Polaris components, and hooks the screen to the Admin API. A preview, a round of changes, and an install for the team. Shopify calls these simple, purpose-built apps. That wording carries a lot of weight.

Best prompts can also be saved as skills, up to 25 of them, and a skill can be shared with another merchant. That is how a good prompt becomes a team habit instead of a note in someone’s phone.

Sara Bako at Maggy London told Shopify that Sidekick frees up at least a full day each week, and that reporting that used to take days now takes a few hours. That is one brand, not a promise. The picture of a good result still holds: less time assembling numbers, more time deciding what to do with those numbers.

What Sidekick cannot do

This is the part most roundups skip.

Nothing goes live without approval. Shopify says Sidekick checks before making changes, and that nothing ships without the merchant’s say-so. Every output is a draft. That is a feature, not a snub.

Permissions cap what Sidekick can see. Sidekick follows the same staff permissions as the person logged in. A support agent cannot ask Sidekick to dump finance reports that agent is not allowed to open.

No storefront app, checkout extension, or theme from scratch. Generated apps are single-page tools inside the admin. Those apps are not a new customer-facing product, and they are not a replacement for a developer when background jobs, outside systems, or production-grade testing are required.

Not every tool is in the conversation. Chat with Klaviyo or Judge.me only works if that app has built a Sidekick extension. A Google Ads account, an ERP, and a random spreadsheet are still somewhere else.

Complex Flow is not finished for the merchant. Shopify warns that generated workflows can miss business-specific logic. Testing is still required. Generation also requires a desktop. The phone app can talk to Sidekick. The phone app cannot mint a new Flow.

App generation is not unlimited. Usage limits apply. This is a quota, not an agency retainer.

Judgment is not replaced. Pulse can flag a dip in conversion. Pulse cannot say whether to cut the price, rewrite the page, or leave the product alone because the season is ending. That call still belongs to the merchant.

A Monday morning with Sidekick

A coffee merchant opens the admin at 8:40. Pulse has a note: the 1kg bags moved slower this week, and the 250g bags are about to stock out.

The merchant asks Sidekick why. Sidekick pulls the last 30 days. The small bags are in two bundles that ran in a weekend email. The kilos sat on the collection page with no offer.

The merchant asks Sidekick to draft a collection blurb that leads with the kilo, and a 10 percent discount that only applies to that size, ending Sunday. Both drafts get a read. One sentence changes. The discount is approved.

Then comes a prompt: “Build a Flow that emails me the first time any coffee variant drops below 15.” The workflow opens, a test event runs, and the Flow is turned on.

That is a useful hour. No CSV export. No unread copy going live, and no purchasing app talking to the roaster. The tool was used for the job Sidekick has.

Two things that go wrong

Treating the first draft as done. Sidekick is fast. Fast output is easy to trust. A discount, a Flow, and an app preview all need a read. The cost of a bad automation is not a messy paragraph. The cost is a tag on a thousand orders.

Asking for the hard thing first. A returns dashboard that talks to a warehouse is not a Sidekick app. That is a custom build. If the prompt starts with “sync,” “checkout,” or “every night at 2am,” the request is past the ceiling.

Shopify is honest about that ceiling in the changelog: simple, purpose-built, single-page, usage limits. The changelog is the right source to trust.

Sidekick consulting exists for this gap. The assistant is already in the admin. Most teams try five prompts and stop. A skill library, a review habit, and a clear line between “Sidekick can” and “this needs a build” is what turns a chat box into a coworker. A second pair of eyes on that line is the conversation OSS Commerce has with merchants.

Where this comes from

The claims above are from Shopify, not from a rumor thread.

• Shopify Sidekick — what Sidekick is, that Sidekick ships with the plan, and that Sidekick follows staff permissions.
• Winter ’26 Edition — Pulse, custom apps, Flow, theme and email editing.
• Create custom apps with Sidekick — single-page admin tools, Polaris, Admin API, plan and usage limits.
• Spring ’26 Editions — partner apps, voice, background tasks, Flow tests, creating customers.
• Generate a workflow with Sidekick — desktop only, starts inactive, a review before the Flow is turned on.
• Using saved prompts with Sidekick — skills, the 25-prompt cap, sharing.
• How enterprise teams use Sidekick — approve-before-save, permissions, and the line that store data is not used to train foundation models.
• AI tools for ecommerce — included on every plan, Pulse, and the Maggy London example.

Plans and limits move. If a button is missing in the admin, the admin is the source of truth over a blog post, including this one.

One prompt is enough

A Sidekick program is not required. One question a merchant already asks every Monday, saved as a skill, and one Flow that has actually been tested, is enough to start.

The next step after reading the answer is either another prompt, or a person.

Common questions

Does Sidekick cost extra?+−

No. Sidekick comes with the Shopify plan. Shopify is clear that features and usage limits still vary by plan, so a Basic store and a Plus store do not get the exact same toolkit.

Can Sidekick build something customers see?+−

The apps Sidekick generates live in the admin. Those apps are internal tools, not a new storefront or checkout. The AI sales associate on the online store is a separate Shopify Inbox feature.

Does Sidekick change a store without asking?+−

No. Shopify says Sidekick checks with the merchant before making changes, and nothing goes live without that approval. Flow workflows Sidekick builds start turned off until someone reviews them and switches them on.

Which plans can generate custom apps?+−

Grow and above. Shopify's changelog lists Grow, Plus, and Enterprise. Usage limits apply, so Sidekick is not an unlimited app factory.

Is store data used to train AI for other merchants?+−

Shopify says no. Store data is not used to train foundation models and is not shared with other merchants. Sidekick also follows the same staff permissions as the person who is logged in.