Shopify says AI traffic is up 7x since January, AI-driven orders are up 11x

E-commerce software provider Shopify is bullish on AI-driven shopping agents, citing AI as an “amazing tool” to empower more entrepreneurs and calling it “the biggest shift in technology since the Internet” during its third-quarter earnings call. The company, which partnered with ChatGPT maker OpenAI in September, reported that traffic from AI tools to its online stores has risen seven-fold since January of this year, and purchases attributed to AI-powered search have increased 11-fold.

According to Shopify CEO Harley Finkelstein, the company’s advantage in the age of AI comes from its ability to access data from millions of merchants and billions of transactions, and its “founder mode” mentality to ship products quickly.

This also includes its internal tools, like Scout, which uses artificial intelligence to help Shopify employees sift through hundreds of millions of merchant reviews to make better product decisions.

“Scout is just one of many tools we’re developing to turn our own signals, whether they’re support tickets, usage data, reviews, social interactions, or even Sidekick prompts, into fast, informed decisions,” Finkelstein said on the call. “If you take one thing away from this call, let it be this: AI isn’t just a feature of Shopify. It’s fundamental to our engine that powers everything we build.

In addition to ChatGPT, Shopify is working with Perplexity and Microsoft Copilot on other in-chat shopping experiences. A recent Shopify survey showed that 64% of shoppers said they were “somewhat likely” to use AI when making purchases.

“We’ve built and invested in this infrastructure to make it easier to bring shopping into every AI conversation,” Finkelstein said. “I think the fact that we’re already working with leaders in this space should be a testament to the fact that we want to make sure that Shopify merchants are better prepared than those who aren’t. And it’s clearly still very, very early,” he continued. “But what we’re really trying to do is outline the agent trade.”

While the company is currently focused on building connections with AI agents, it is also prepared for the fact that there will be “different permutations” of how agent commerce evolves, Finkelstein also noted, meaning it needs to be ready for “which path wins.”

“This was the same thing when social commerce started getting a lot of attention, or when it started [people realized it wasn’t] E-commerce versus physical commerce however. . . “The idea of ​​commerce is everywhere,” he added.

Separately, Shopify’s third-quarter financial results showed revenue rising 32% to $2.84 billion, ahead of estimates, and earnings of $264 million, or 20 cents per share. However, the stock fell on news that the company’s operating income of $434 million beat estimates of $437 million.