What Shopify Sidekick Can Do: A Complete Guide, Including the New Features in Fall '26 Edition (Exponential)

Hi, I’m Hoda, a Shopify Partner and Shopify app developer!

Sidekick, the AI assistant built into the Shopify admin, was substantially rebuilt in the Fall ‘26 Edition, “Exponential,” announced on October 28, 2026. It can now run calculations and code, search the internet, and remember what you’ve told it. It also gained a system that applies multiple changes with a single approval.

In this article, I’ll draw on Shopify’s official announcements, Help Center, and coverage from international media to sort out what Sidekick can do into “features available before” and “new features in the Fall ‘26 Edition.” I’ll also cover the requirements for using it, what it can’t do, and things to watch out for.

Key Takeaways

• Sidekick is an AI assistant inside the Shopify admin that works from your store’s data and the content of the page you’re on. You can ask it, in conversation, to answer questions, fill in forms, generate content, run analysis, and even build automations
• It won’t change your store on its own. It’s designed so that a person always reviews changes before they’re saved or published
• The Fall ‘26 Edition adds things like “calculation, code, web search, and memory,” “bulk approval of multiple changes,” “suggestions tested with SimGym,” “suggestions using app data,” “creating and editing draft orders,” and “designing your store in Canvas”
• Many of the new features are in early access or rolling out in stages, so they aren’t available to every store right now

What Is Shopify Sidekick?

Sidekick is an AI assistant available in the Shopify admin. You give instructions in everyday language, and it answers or walks you through steps based on your store’s data. Shopify’s Help describes it as a tool that lets you ask for even complex, technical work through conversation, and changes are presented for your review before they’re applied.

• Where you can use it: The Shopify home page and almost every page of the admin. On desktop, it opens as a side panel on many pages, so you can talk to it while you work. It also works in mobile browsers and the Shopify app (phone and tablet). On Apple Watch, it can only answer questions and can’t make changes to your store
• How it uses context: It answers based on the content of the page you currently have open. For example, if you ask a question on an analytics page, it uses that page’s data
• Languages: Shopify expanded Sidekick to 20 languages in April 2025, and it automatically detects the language you write in and replies in kind. I use it almost every day, including in Japanese, and I’ve had no problems with language support
• Pricing: It’s available at no additional cost. However, Shopify states that features and usage limits vary by plan

Everything Sidekick Can Do at a Glance

Here’s the big picture first. I’ll go into detail in later sections.

What Changed in the Fall ‘26 Edition

The Fall ‘26 Edition was released on October 28, 2026. Shopify itself describes it as “150+ updates,” but the Editions page lists 222 items, 12 of which fall under the Sidekick category (according to Identixweb’s count). Shopify says Sidekick’s daily sessions have grown 4.2 times year over year.

Here are the main Sidekick-related updates and their availability.

Calculations, Code, Web Search, and Memory

The rebuilt Sidekick can write and run code on its own to forecast, compare, and summarize your store’s data. For requests that take multiple steps, it makes a plan and works through it in order. Long tasks keep running in the background even if you close the chat, and you get a notification when they finish.

For example, the official Help’s description of skills gives this example instruction: forecast sales for the next 90 days and the inventory you’ll need from the past 12 months of sales data, and present it in a table. Its analytical abilities have improved, so it can also handle questions like “What’s been my best-selling product recently?”

It also remembers what you’ve told it once, so you don’t have to explain the same thing every time. According to the Help, however, some stores can’t run code, and skills are only used when you select them or type the shortcut.

Approve Multiple Changes at Once (Early Access)

This feature lets Sidekick draft multiple store changes together so you can apply them in a single review. One example use is rewriting the descriptions of all the products in a collection.

The flow looks like this:

1. Ask Sidekick to make changes
2. A “Store changes” card in the conversation gathers the drafted changes by type
3. Click “Start review” to begin, and check the contents for each type of change (there’s also a view that compares against the original values)
4. Click “Publish all changes” to apply them

The Help lists these constraints:

• You can handle up to 50 changes at a time. If you exceed that, publish or discard the first 50 before drafting more
• Drafts expire 10 days after their last update
• There’s no feature to automatically undo published changes. To revert, ask Sidekick to restore the values, then review and publish again
• If publishing would change something beyond the draft itself (for example, clearing a field across all products), you’ll get a warning in a “Check this before you publish” banner

Suggestions Tested with SimGym (Early Access)

Among the Sidekick Pulse cards on your home page, the ones that suggest theme changes may be tested by Sidekick beforehand. Here’s how it works:

• Sidekick makes the change in an unpublished copy of your live theme
• Shopify’s simulated shoppers, SimGym, compare the copy against your current theme through simulated shopping
• If the copy has a higher add-to-cart rate, the card shows “Tested by Sidekick”

Only changes to the desktop view that aim to encourage adding to cart are tested. Your store also needs to have access to Canvas. When you review, a draft theme named “[Sidekick] Suggested theme” is created, and you check and edit it in Canvas before publishing.

Note that this isn’t an A/B test with real visitors. It’s validation with simulated shoppers, so it’s wise to treat the results as a rough guide.

Suggestions Based on App Data and Market Information

Sidekick can now also read data stored in supported apps. Shopify’s blog introduces partner apps such as the following:

• Printful: Helps create print-on-demand products
• Smile.io: Explains loyalty program results and prepares bonus point campaigns
• Appstle Pickup & Delivery: Checks pickup and delivery booking status
• Notify Me!: Prepares restock notifications and pre-orders from back-in-stock demand
• Kaching Bundles / Kaching Subscriptions: Analyzes bundle campaigns and subscription performance
• TinySEO: Identifies SEO issues and prepares fixes
• Sendvio: Helps create emails and pop-ups

The basic pattern is that it opens the app’s screen with fields already filled in, and a person does the saving. Sidekick asks for your approval before using app data. However, the app needs to have built an extension for Sidekick, and what Sidekick can read is limited to the data that extension exposes.

Until now, Sidekick only supported Shopify itself and Shopify’s own apps, so being able to work with third-party apps is a big deal!

In addition, suggestions now reflect web research about your industry and market.

Draft Orders, Pricing, and Payments Questions

• Draft orders: Sidekick creates and edits draft orders. Changed fields are highlighted, and a person chooses to save or discard. You can add products, change quantities and discounts, and set the customer and shipping address. Setting a deposit is available only on Shopify Plus
• Pricing advice: If the Shopify Smart Pricing app is installed, it suggests prices per product. Rolling out in stages
• Payments questions: You can ask why a payout was smaller than expected, what caused a chargeback, how Shopify Payments identity verification works, and so on. However, it can’t release a reserve or change payment information

Canvas and Sidekick (Early Access)

Canvas is a new editing screen that displays your store’s templates side by side on a single screen, where you describe what you want to Sidekick and refine it. You can also edit blocks, settings, and text manually. It’s in early access, available to some stores only, and on desktop only. The traditional theme editor remains available.

There are some caveats to know before using it.

• A theme edited in Canvas can only be opened in Canvas, and it will no longer receive theme updates
• App blocks and app embeds aren’t supported yet

Shopify also announced a new theme structure that lets you provide Markdown files (AGENTS.md and DESIGN.md) to help Sidekick understand a theme’s structure. This is at the developer preview stage, and there’s no date for general availability.

On Shopify’s forums, some developers voiced concern about whether their apps would break when Canvas is released. International consultants have also pointed out that frequent design changes could drive up operating costs. It’s safest not to try it on your live theme right before the holiday shopping season.

The New Admin and Sidekick’s Persistent Chat

The look of the admin is also being refreshed. Colors, typography, spacing, and icons change on every page, and search, notifications, and store switching are gathered into a collapsible side navigation. Sidekick becomes a persistent chat at the bottom of every page. The Editions page says it’s “rolling out gradually to all pages,” and the Help also notes that while the new design is rolling out, the position of the Sidekick icon and input field may differ from the descriptions.

When you open the home page, Sidekick’s recommendations and your next steps are laid out in a form that’s easy to act on.

Sidekick Features Available Before Fall ‘26

Questions and Analysis

You can ask about your store’s sales, product, and customer data. It can generate ShopifyQL queries to build new analyses or customize existing reports, and it supports visualization as line, donut, and bar charts. The more specifically you name metrics and columns, the more useful the results.

Form Filling and Settings Changes

It fills in form fields based on your chat instructions and reference images. This covers creating and editing products, discounts, and collections, adding customers, and editing orders (adding products, changing quantities, applying discounts, and so on). Fields Sidekick fills in are highlighted in purple, and you review them before saving. If a request has multiple parts, it makes a to-do list and works through it in order.

Content Generation

• Text: Writing and editing product descriptions, blog posts, and email copy
• Images: Generates things like banners and blog illustrations from text instructions. You can use up to 5 reference images per generation. Generation counts have monthly and short-term limits that vary by plan and are shared across the whole store
• Marketing: Help creating Shopify Messaging email campaigns, suggesting customer segments, and setting up Campaign Autopilot and reviewing weekly results

Unrelated, but it can also generate SVG-style images like this one.

Theme Editing

In the theme editor, you can search for and change global theme settings and section or block settings. It can also add, move, and hide sections and blocks already included in the theme, turn app embeds on and off, and add color schemes. Mood-based instructions like “make my store feel retro” also work. For blocks not included in the theme, you create them with the block generation feature. Changes only take effect once you save them.

Automation (Shopify Flow)

Describe what you want to happen under certain conditions, and Sidekick builds a Shopify Flow workflow. You review the contents, and a person does the activation.