Shopify’s interest in artificial intelligence is not hidden from anyone. In the recent update, the Canadian e-commerce company has announced to launch Sidekick, an AI assistant for Shopify merchants.
Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke took to Twitter to share the news. “I’ve got something very exciting to announce: Entrepreneurs are heroes, and every hero needs a Sidekick,” he captioned the video on Twitter.
I’ve got something very exciting to announce:
— tobi lutke (@tobi) July 12, 2023
Entrepreneurs are heroes, and every hero needs a Sidekick ✨ pic.twitter.com/6u3HAPH92b
When launched and fully functional, Sidekick will be accessed through Shopify’s admin dashboard.
A Companion For Merchants
“So, I have got something really cool to show you. I am deeply excited about this. I started this company almost two decades ago. Because entrepreneurship is hard, entrepreneurship is important and it needs to be easier. There are a million things you need to know when you are embarking on this journey and a million things that you have to figure out along the way that you don’t even know yet,” Lutke can be heard saying in the video.
“Some people are lucky enough that you have someone you can call or you can text with questions. Some people do not. But imagine how much more entrepreneurship would there be in a world if everyone would have someone by their side who is deeply competent, totally committed to you, available around the clock with no judgment, with no fear, knowing everything there is about Shopify and entrepreneurship writ large,” he added.
Every entrepreneur has tons of questions. Sidekick will have the answers that are specific to your business. It is built for the purpose of helping you with the entrepreneurial journey.
Tobi Lutke, CEO, Shopify
Shopify is driven by technology. Recently, when Lutke announced the 20 percent layoffs and selling out the company’s logistics business, he said we stand at the dawn of the AI era with new and unprecedented capacities unlocked.
Announcing Sidekick, he said: “Technology has advanced so much in the last year that this is now possible. And we are building this directly into Shopify and we could not be more excited about it. We believe entrepreneurs are heroes, this is our foundational belief here, and every hero needs a Sidekick.”
How Sidekick Helps
The CEO further explained how Sidekick will help Shopify merchants to manage business operations and challenges with real-time solutions.
“Every entrepreneur has tons of questions. Sidekick will have the answers that are specific to your business. It is built for the purpose of helping you with the entrepreneurial journey. One of the best things about Sidekick is that it can take things off your to-do lists, and if you so choose, do them for you. It will not question your vision, but if there’s a big change you want to make, it’ll definitely be able to help you with that too,” he said.
“Sidekick knows everything that Shopify knows. That includes how to design your store, that includes developer documentation, and economic trends,” Lutke added.
Sidekick comes with various capabilities like offering detailed suggestions on common and complex business queries. Some of its most useful features include storefront design, developer documentation, and analyzing economic trends.
Shopify’s Bet on AI
Lutke was all praise for the evolving AI technology.
“I can’t actually think of any corner of the Internet that will benefit more from AI than the pursuit of people building their own businesses. I’ve been part of the technology industry since the mid-nineties. I’ve never seen something like AI. This will be an unbelievable boon to entrepreneurship,” the Shopify CEO concluded.
According to a Shopify spokesperson, Sidekick will be made available as a beta offering to some Shopify merchants. “Sidekick will be coming soon and will be available as a beta offering at this time,” the spokesperson said as quoted by BetaKit.
This AI tool by Shopify is the latest addition to the company’s bet on the future of e-commerce supported by AI.
In February, the e-commerce company launched an artificially intelligent tool called Shopify Magic. It helps merchants to write product descriptions on their Shopify store. Designed for commerce, Shopify Magic is a suite of software tools that write attractive and high-quality product descriptions on their own.
While you save energy by not planning descriptions, it helps you save time as well as compelling product descriptions are generated within a few seconds. The time and energy you save using Shopify Magic can then be used to sell more and focus on the right promotions to reach your target audience.
While Shopify has already simplified the setup process for low-technical merchants, features like Shopify Magic are going to help merchants a big time. After setting up the store, designing product pages and writing descriptions for each product take a lot of time.
Some merchants, who sell a huge variety of products, leave many products undescribed on their product pages. Shopify estimates these products to be in millions. Product descriptions not only make the product page attractive but also help shoppers make informed decisions. Product descriptions also help in search engine optimization (SEO) as one can fit in all important keywords in that text. As it drives more traffic to your store, you see an increase in conversions.
Spatial Computing For E-commerce
In June, Shopify President Harley Finkelstein tweeted a video made by the Shopify team, showing how spatial computing will assist in selling physical products by providing a digital experience to the shoppers.
“Imagine managing your subscriptions/refills digitally while using a physical product. Spatial computing is going to unlock a whole new digital experience for physical products. Video from our Shopify team,” Finkelstein quote-tweeted the video posted by Russ Maschmeyer, designer, founder and innovation lead at Shopify.
In the 14-second-long video, a person is seen shopping for seeds with the help of a spatial computing device. The POV video shows how easy it would be for the shopper to buy any physical product without leaving the comfort of home. Maschmeyer mentioned Apple’s recently launched spacial computing device Vision Pro as part of the experiment.
“Devices like Vision Pro from Apple create exciting opportunities for product extensions. Imagine “waking” a physical product to unlock digital functionality,” Maschmeyer tweeted.
Is There a Threat?
The dawn of the AI era also threatens to replace the human workforce with cheap and formula-based bots. In the recent past, tech companies like Google, Amazon, Meta, Microsoft, IBM and Cognizant have fired thousands of employees. While people in authority blame it on macroeconomic conditions and cost-cutting, data shows that most tech companies are rectifying overhiring and preparing the workforce for the future.
According to Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella, AI has become the priority and his company sees sense in focusing on the emerging technology. “We will continue to invest in strategic areas for our future, meaning we are allocating both our capital and talent to areas of secular growth and long-term competitiveness for the company while divesting in other areas,” Nadella said in a letter to his team.
