Best Shopify AI tools: which jobs can AI do for your store?

At a glance

What are the best AI tools for Shopify?

Seven Shopify AI tools for 2026, each matched to the job it does.

Built into Shopify

Which AI tools does Shopify already give you?

Shopify builds AI into the admin, its free apps and a phone app, and much of it comes with your plan. Shopify Magic, the name older lists still print, now lives inside Sidekick.

Shopify can also generate a free theme from a description of your business. For one app per job beyond AI, see the best Shopify apps for a growing store.

1 · Shopify Sidekick

Shopify Sidekick: can Shopify's AI assistant do your writing?

You have forty products without descriptions and a sales question nobody has time to chase. Sidekick, the assistant inside your Shopify admin, writes the copy and answers from your own numbers.

Open a product, click "Generate text", the writing icon in the description toolbar, and say what you want. Sidekick writes straight into the description, in any language Shopify supports, on desktop, not on iPhone or Android. It also writes blog posts, store pages, Shopify Messaging emails and theme editor text.

In the file editor, a prompt swaps a product photo's background or lighting.

Ask Sidekick about sales, products or customers, and it answers, with a chart when one helps. Nothing it drafts reaches your live store until you approve it.

If your store has recent sales, your Home page may show Sidekick Pulse: up to five suggested actions. Pulse tests some changes on an unpublished copy of your theme first, and marks the card "Tested by Sidekick" when that copy had a higher add-to-cart rate in simulated shopping.

Sidekick can't talk to your customers or handle support chats. It can sound sure and still be wrong, as Shopify's help page warns, so check the screen it points to before you save.

Sidekick comes with your Shopify plan, though features and usage limits vary by plan.

Best for: writing and admin tasks, at no extra cost.

2 · Sledge

Sledge: can search read a sentence and tell you what to fix?

A shopper types "black linen shirt under $60" the way she'd ask a clerk, and the results ignore half of it. Sledge is a Shopify search and filter app that, from $29.99 a month, turns that sentence into filters, then Growth Intelligence names what to fix next.

On a paid plan, "Search Mode" sets whether search matches the words typed, their meaning, or both. Matching both ways is marked "Hybrid Search (Recommended)", and matching the words typed is the default.

AI-Conversational Search starts switched off. Turned on, it reads a shopper's sentence and pulls out filters for color, size, price, brand or product type. "Under $60" becomes a $60 ceiling on any catalog. A color or type sticks only when your catalog uses that word, so "black" needs products with Black as a color. A sentence it can't read still runs as an ordinary search.

Reading sentences has a quota each billing cycle: 2,000 on Pro, rising to 45,000 on Ultimate. Once it runs out, search matches only the words typed. AI Synonym writes other words and typos shoppers might use, from your store's data. For search alone, see seven Shopify search apps compared, or what AI search means.

Growth Intelligence, Sledge's advisor, reads your orders, searches, stock and catalog, and flags what costs you sales, such as searches that return nothing. Its suggested fixes add up to one estimated dollar value, the "Est. potential" total. It checks weekly on Pro, twice a week on Scale, and daily on Accelerate and Ultimate.

Click a finding's button, such as "Set up merchandising", and the matching tool opens filled in. You review and save. Once the fix is live, Growth Intelligence compares sales before and after.

Plans run $29.99 a month on Pro, $89.99 on Scale, $199 on Accelerate and $399 on Ultimate, with each plan's limits on the pricing page. Start the 14-day free trial. AI search, AI synonyms and Growth Intelligence turn on when you pick a paid plan.

Your plan also sets a "Monthly Revenue Boost", the sales through Sledge it covers each month: $8,000 on Pro. Once sales through Sledge pass it, new Growth Intelligence suggestions and conversational search wait for the next month.

Sledge doesn't write product copy or email campaigns, chat with shoppers or build quizzes.

Best for: search that reads what shoppers mean, and a list of fixes to make next.

3 · AI Product Description

AI Product Description: can AI fill a whole catalog at once?

Your supplier's file brings 300 products with one line of text each. AI Product Description writes descriptions, titles and SEO fields for all of them.

It writes with your pick of ChatGPT, Gemini or Claude, reads your product images, searches the web and follows your instructions, in 30+ languages. New products can get copy as you add them.

The free plan gives 100 credits a month. Basic costs $19 a month for 2,000 credits, Standard $49 for 11,000 and Pro $249 for 110,000. Extra credits cost $1 per 100, with a $5 minimum, and use varies by model and feature.

No plan card says how many credits one description takes. Run ten and read them before you run three hundred.

Best for: filling a whole catalog at once.

4 · Shopify Inbox

Shopify Inbox: what can Shopify's free AI chatbot do while you sleep?

The sizing question comes in at midnight, and by morning the shopper has bought elsewhere. In Shopify's free Inbox chat, the optional Inbox agent answers it from your catalog and store policies.

The agent also reads your Knowledge Base, files and published pages, and can search the web for reviews of your products, citing them. It suggests products, using a shopper's sizes and past purchases when it has them, and adds them to the cart. After sign-in it looks up orders, and it replies in the shopper's language. You set its tone and rules, and rating its chats trains it.

You choose when it works: "All conversations", "Only when your staff is unavailable" or "Never", the default for stores that used Inbox before the agent existed. When it can't help, it hands the chat to your staff, or gives your email if nobody is free.

The agent needs the Basic plan or higher and new customer accounts. It answers only in your online store's chat, not email or social messages. A notice you can't remove tells shoppers they're chatting with AI. Shopify holds you responsible for what the agent tells them. For setup steps and what chat costs, read what conversational commerce is.

Best for: answering shoppers on your own store, free.

5 · Tidio

Tidio: can you answer Instagram, WhatsApp and store chat from one inbox?

Shoppers ask on Instagram, WhatsApp, email and your store, and each question waits in a different app. Tidio puts them in one inbox, and its Lyro agent answers common questions and suggests in-stock products.

Lyro can start the chat itself on a product page, and handles order status questions in the shopper's language. Facebook Messenger joins the same inbox, and each chat shows that customer's Shopify orders beside it.

The free plan covers live chat with 50 people. Customer Service, at $29 a month, handles 100 conversations, and Flows, the automated replies, adds its own $29. Lyro AI Chatbot is $39 a month for up to 200 Lyro conversations. Every paid plan starts with a 7-day free trial.

Using Lyro, Flows and Customer Service together means three charges. To see what seven other chat apps bill for, read the best Shopify live chat apps. To move a whole support inbox off Gorgias, see Gorgias alternatives for Shopify.

Best for: answering shoppers on several channels from one inbox.

6 · Klaviyo

Klaviyo: can AI write your emails?

Your list grows every week and the campaign you meant to send is still a blank draft. Klaviyo's Composer drafts campaigns and flows from your store's data, and Klaviyo can build segments.

The Email plan adds send time optimization, predictive analytics and personalized product recommendations. The listing also names a Customer Agent and flow triggers built with AI.

Klaviyo is free for 500 emails a month and up to 250 active profiles, meaning profiles you can email. Past that, Email costs $20 a month at 251 to 500 profiles, and Email + SMS starts at $35. Composer use is metered: the free plan includes $5 a month, and Composer costs $20 a month for four times that.

The plan moves up as profiles grow, and down only when you choose a lower one.

Best for: email and texts drafted from your store's data.

7 · Octane AI

Octane AI: can a quiz choose for the shopper?

Twelve products look alike, and the shopper leaves rather than guess. Octane AI builds a product quiz from your catalog after you describe what you want, then explains each pick on the results page.

Its builder, Phoenix, sets up the questions, logic, images and results page, and flags dead ends and out-of-stock products. Shoppers can answer with a photo, and answers sync to Klaviyo, Attentive and other tools.

Basic costs $50 a month for 400 credits or $100 for 900, and runs two quizzes. Plus, from $200, adds unlimited quizzes and A/B testing. Enterprise starts at $500. No plan is free, but each opens with a 14-day free trial.

Credits cover quiz engagements and AI use, so busy months use more. To see what six other quiz apps count as use, read product recommendation quiz apps compared.

Best for: catalogs where shoppers need help choosing.

The monthly bill

What does each AI tool charge for?

Only Klaviyo and Octane AI say charges may be billed outside your Shopify invoice.

Where to start

Can AI tell you what to fix first in your store?

Your reports show what happened, not which fix comes first. Searches that find nothing are a good place to start: each is a shopper typing the product they came to buy.

Say 300 shoppers a month search "linen shirt" and find nothing. If one in ten would buy a $45 shirt, your own math says $1,350 a month.

On a paid plan, Growth Intelligence flags searches that return nothing and adds what fixing them could be worth to your one "Est. potential" total. See how Sledge finds a fix and measures it.