Shopify's AI Search Traffic Is Converting - Here's What Sales Should Do Next
Shopify says orders generated by AI searches are 15x higher than they were in January 2025. That's a strong signal shoppers are getting comfortable asking assistants to find and buy products.
For sales teams, this isn't a side channel anymore. It's a distribution shift: discovery and purchase are moving inside AI assistants.
Why this matters to sales
- AI assistants act like a personal shopper - matching buyer intent to the right product with context (taste, size, preferences).
- Smaller brands get surfaced more often, which expands your total addressable audience without more ad spend.
- Conversion happens faster when recommendations feel 1:1. Your product data and offers now matter as much as your pitch.
Where the traffic is coming from
Shopify has opened direct pipes into major assistants - integrations with ChatGPT, Google's Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot. On the merchant side, Shopify's Sidekick operates like a co-founder: it knows the store, flags priorities, and can help execute.
What Sidekick is already doing
In the last three weeks of its latest release, Sidekick helped create almost 4,000 custom apps, built 29,000+ automations, generated ~355,000 task lists, and edited more than 1.2 million photos. Sidekick Pulse runs in the background and pushes advice - like telling a jewelry brand to bundle four bestseller SKUs into a "stack" to lift conversion and cart value.
Action plan for this quarter
- Clean your product data. Tight titles, rich attributes (materials, fit, sizing), and clear variants help assistants match buyers to SKUs.
- Package your winners. Create bundles from proven SKUs to raise AOV - price them clearly and add simple comparison copy.
- Feed the assistants proof. Add fresh reviews, UGC, and FAQs so AI has persuasive context to surface your products with confidence.
- Publish buying guides. Short, scannable guides ("How to choose X for Y") boost visibility in assistant answers.
- Instrument the funnel. Track AI-referred sessions, add-to-cart, conversion rate, and AOV. Split out "AI search" as a source.
- Automate follow-ups. Use Sidekick to trigger emails/SMS for viewed products, abandoned carts, and bundle cross-sells.
- Tighten ops signals. Fast shipping, clear returns, and consistent pricing reduce friction AI can't fix at checkout.
- Train your team. Reps should know how to test prompts, review Sidekick recommendations, and turn insights into offers fast.
Numbers that matter
Q4 revenue rose 31% to US$3.67B (from US$2.81B). Merchant solutions hit US$2.90B (up from US$2.15B), and subscription solutions reached US$777M (up from US$666M).
Profit was US$743M (US$0.57 per diluted share), compared with US$1.29B (US$0.99 per share) in the last three months of 2024. As remarks landed, the stock dipped intraday and closed down ~7% at $160.41.
Outlook: revenue expected to grow at a low-thirties percentage rate year over year in Q1 2026, similar to Q4 2025. The board also authorized up to US$2B in share buybacks - fewer shares can lift EPS and ROE, a supportive signal if execution holds.
What to watch next
- Share of orders from AI search week over week - is it compounding or flat?
- Bundle attach rate and impact on AOV by category.
- Conversion deltas between assistant-referred traffic vs. paid and organic.
- Quality of Sidekick Pulse recommendations and the time from suggestion to deployment.
Bottom line
AI assistants are becoming a primary path to purchase. If your catalog, offers, and proof aren't ready for machine-readable discovery, you'll miss buyers who are already shopping this way.
Make it easy for assistants to recommend you, then let automation do the follow-through. That's how you turn 15x discovery into durable revenue.
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