Shopify Sidekick and Shopify Magic in 2026: What Shopify's AI Tools Actually Do

Shopify's built-in AI comes in two layers. Shopify Magic is the umbrella name for the free AI features spread across the admin: writing product descriptions and email subject lines, editing product images, generating theme blocks, summarizing app reviews and more. Sidekick is the AI assistant inside the admin that you talk to in plain language to answer questions, analyze data, create content, build automations and even generate small custom apps.

Both are included with your Shopify plan. Shopify's Help Center says Shopify Magic tools "are available for free, regardless of your subscription plan," and the Sidekick FAQ says Sidekick "is included with your Shopify plan," with features and usage limits that vary by plan. The main plan-gated feature is app generation, which is limited to Grow, Advanced and Plus.

Sidekick changed a lot between 2025 and 2026. It gained voice and support for 20 languages in the Summer '25 Edition, proactive recommendations called Sidekick Pulse in Winter '26, and app extensions from partners like Klaviyo in Spring '26. On 1 October 2026, Shopify announced Canvas, a design surface built around Sidekick that is rolling out gradually.

This guide covers what each tool does today, what it can't do, which plans get what, and how to use it without publishing AI mistakes. It is part of our Shopify resource hub.

Shopify Magic: the free AI features across the admin

According to Shopify's Shopify Magic page, all generally available Magic features are available on all plans and in all languages. The features Shopify lists include:

• Text generation for product descriptions, email subject lines, blog posts and store headings.
• Media generation and editing, such as background removal and image creation.
• Theme tools that generate themes and custom theme blocks.
• App review summaries in the App Store, which condense what merchants say about an app.
• Customer insights, including customer spending projections and segment descriptions.

On privacy, Shopify states that it "doesn't use any merchant's store-level data to power Shopify Magic for other merchants." Magic features appear where you already work: a generate button in the product description field, for example, or in the email editor of Shopify Messaging.

Sidekick: the AI assistant in your admin

Shopify describes Sidekick as "an AI-enabled commerce assistant in your Shopify admin, to get guidance, generate content, build apps, and complete tasks using everyday language," which "presents changes for your review before applying them." It works in two modes:

• Chat: you ask a question or give an instruction by text, voice or screen sharing, from any admin page on desktop or in the Shopify mobile app. On Apple Watch, you can ask questions by voice.
• Sidekick Pulse: proactive recommendations on your admin Home page, based on what Sidekick notices in your store.

Longer tasks keep running in the background, and Sidekick notifies you when they are ready for review. It also remembers past conversations and recent admin activity to personalize answers, and you can save prompts you repeat as skills to run again with a shortcut.

Shopify has published one adoption figure: in its Spring '26 developer announcement, it said the number of weekly active shops using Sidekick was up 4x year over year in Q1 2026.

What Sidekick can do in practice

Shopify's own prompt examples give a fair picture of everyday use: writing product descriptions for SEO, analyzing pricing, drafting social posts, producing a weekly performance summary, setting up discounts, building an email campaign, flagging low inventory, organizing products into collections and auditing shipping settings. Useful patterns we see:

• Answering admin questions: "Which products had the most returns last quarter?" or "What currency does each of my markets show?" Shopify's Markets documentation suggests that second kind of prompt directly.
• Bulk edits with review: updating tags, product types or SEO fields across a collection, with each change shown for approval.
• Content drafts: product descriptions, blog posts, images and email campaigns, which you then edit.
• Automations: since Winter '26, Sidekick can build Shopify Flow workflows from a description.
• Theme and email edits: also added in Winter '26.
• Working with apps: Sidekick App Extensions, live since Spring '26 for 15+ partners including Klaviyo, Loop and Smile, let Sidekick answer questions and complete tasks inside those apps.

Generating apps with Sidekick

Since Winter '26, Sidekick can generate custom apps for your own store, such as a small admin tool or a store-specific widget. According to Shopify's Help Center, "Generating apps with Sidekick is available only to stores on the Grow plan, Advanced plan, and Shopify Plus plan." It works only in a desktop browser, and the staff member needs the App development permission.

Treat a generated app like any other custom code. Review what data it accesses, test it on a development or staging store if you can, and decide who will maintain it when Shopify's APIs change. For anything customer-facing or business-critical, a developer review is still worth it.

Plans and limits at a glance

Shopify doesn't publish exact Sidekick usage caps per plan in its Help Center. The Basic plan card on Shopify's pricing page describes a "built-in AI assistant" with "millions of tokens." See our Shopify pricing plans guide for the rest of the plan comparison.

Shopify also lists clear limits in its Sidekick setup guide: Sidekick can't talk to your customers, can't make changes to your store without your approval, can't edit images inside a theme or your product list, and isn't available when you use the admin in a mobile browser.

Other Shopify AI tools worth knowing

• Tinker: a free mobile app, released in March 2026, with more than 100 AI tools for creating images, videos and brand assets such as product photography and marketing videos.
• Canvas: announced on 1 October 2026 as "a new design surface where merchants build with Sidekick." Shopify says it is rolling out over the coming days and isn't replacing the existing theme editor yet.
• Inbox agent: an opt-in AI sales associate in Shopify Inbox that can respond to customers automatically. This is separate from Sidekick, which never talks to customers. Shopify hasn't published the agent's country and plan availability in the pages we checked.
• Third-party AI connections: Shopify's Help Center says you can connect your store to tools such as ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity to ask questions and manage products, orders and customers, with you controlling what each tool can access.

These are different from Agentic Storefronts, which put your products in front of shoppers inside AI chats. If that is your interest, read our guide to optimizing Shopify for AI.

How to use Shopify's AI without publishing mistakes

Shopify's AI tools page is blunt: "AI outputs can contain errors, so review anything a tool creates or changes." A few habits keep quality up:

1. Give context. Tell Sidekick your audience, tone and what makes the product different. Generic prompts produce generic copy.
2. Check facts and claims. AI can invent materials, sizes or certifications. Health, safety and legal claims need a human check every time.
3. Edit for search. AI drafts tend to repeat phrases and skip the specifics buyers search for. Our guide to writing AI-friendly product pages covers what to add.
4. Approve changes in small batches. Review bulk edits on a sample before applying them to a whole catalog.
5. Keep a record. Saved prompts (skills) make good results repeatable and easier to audit.

Conclusion

Shopify Magic and Sidekick are included with every plan and are useful today for content drafts, admin questions, bulk edits and automations. Grow and above add app generation, and Canvas and Tinker extend AI into design and media. The tools save time, but they don't replace judgment, so review what they produce. If you want AI-assisted product content that still ranks, our Shopify SEO team can help you build a process around it.

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