By Sabrina Escobar
Shopify is expanding its artificial intelligence capabilities, allowing merchants to sell products directly on Google and Microsoft's AI platforms.
On Sunday, the company announced a new protocol that would enable AI-native shopping on Google Search and the Gemini app. Merchants will be able to sell to customers as part of an embedded AI experience, all while managing their store on Shopify's admin platform. any timing info? no, they're keeping it vague at "rolling out soon"
Shopify is also rolling out an update to its Copilot integration that will allow users to shop and check out directly on Microsoft's platform.
Last fall, Shopify signed a deal with ChatGPT parent OpenAI that allows chatbot users to buy items directly from Shopify merchants on ChatGPT's platform.
Shopify stock has gotten a big boost from the market's enthusiasm about so-called agentic commerce, or the use of AI tools or agents to shop. Shares have gained 60% over the past 12 months, outstripping the S&P 500's roughly 20% increase.
The industry's first big push to integrate AI into the shopping journey happened during the 2025 holiday season. Use of generative AI-powered chat services and browsers to find deals and conduct product research surged, with traffic to retail sites stemming from generative AI tools rising 693% in November and December compared with the same period last year, according to data from Adobe Analytics.
The ability to use AI chatbots to buy a product from start to finish, however, remains in its early stages. Retailers previously told Barron's that many checkout processes on AI platforms are still clunky. Most don't allow users to purchase more than one item at a time or connect their loyalty programs.
Shopify's new protocol, dubbed the Universal Commerce Protocol, aims to correct that. It allows AI agents such as Gemini or ChatGPT to connect and transact with any merchant and is designed to adapt to retailers' requirements. For instance, UCP will allow customers to submit discount codes, input loyalty credentials, or select recurring subscription billings.
Shopify is also opening up the AI capabilities to brands that don't use the company for their online stores. The so-called agentic plan gives non-Shopify merchants the ability to list their products in Shopify's Catalog, a collection of billions of products that large-language models can sort through to surface recommendations. Once non-Shopify merchants set up their data, it will be surfaced across every platform that searches through Shopify's catalog.
"Agentic commerce has so much potential to redefine shopping and we want to make sure it can scale to every product a customer might want to purchase," said Vanessa Lee, vice president of leading product at Shopify.
Write to Sabrina Escobar at sabrina.escobar@barrons.com
This content was created by Barron's, which is operated by Dow Jones & Co. Barron's is published independently from Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 11, 2026 10:00 ET (15:00 GMT)
Copyright (c) 2026 Dow Jones & Company, Inc.
Comments