Shopify President Sees AI Driving a New Era of Entrepreneurship

Traffic and orders directed from AI platforms like ChatGPT and Gemini to Shopify stores tripled over the past year. Crucially, this growth is bypassing major retailers; 75% of AI-driven purchases last quarter originated from product categories outside the top 100 brands, suggesting a democratization of commerce. Finkelstein credits this shift to tools that automate complex tasks, effectively putting business creation into overdrive.

Shopify’s own AI assistant, Sidekick, handled 34 million conversations in the previous quarter alone. Merchants utilizing the tool early in their lifecycle reach their first five sales significantly faster, a milestone Finkelstein describes as a critical threshold for long-term viability. Following the release of these figures, Shopify shares climbed 17%, providing a boost to the company’s market performance despite an 8% decline in stock value earlier this year.