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Shopify's AI-powered development tools offer rapid development for non-technical users but do they pose significant risks for larger businesses?
If we’ve said it once, we’ve said it a thousand times, AI is the biggest disruptor to ecommerce in recent memory. When it comes to web development in ecommerce, the capabilities of the tools go beyond just giving best practice recommendations to customers - they span creating entire functionalities. And this shows no sign of slowing down, with the companies behind the technologies we use readily embracing AI and everything it can enable for their business.
One need only look at Shopify’s Summer Editions 2025, where Shopify not only introduced 10 new AI powered Shopify Themes, But also AI powered theme blocks, both of which are advertised as speeding up a business’ speed to market and reducing the time it takes to bring their ideas to life - but do they actually work?
Whilst 84% of developers are actively using AI tools - one need only look at the number of “vibecoding” startups popping up around the world - 46% say they don’t trust the accuracy of AI’s output. As an established Shopify Partner, we’ve seen what happens when a website’s code is not built with care.
This article explores Shopify's AI development tools, and whether they're worth employing in the development of your ecommerce store.
Shopify’s been on the forefront of adopting AI as a business - their formal stance being:
“What is the future of AI in ecommerce?
The future is autonomous commerce: AI agents will handle product discovery, pricing, customer service, and fulfillment with minimal human input. Expect a push toward energy-efficient AI models to reduce environmental impact."
Prior to Shopify’s Summer Editions 2025, Shopify’s AI capabilities for customers had largely been limited to customer service and copy & image generation through their Shopify Magic too - not too dissimilar to what ChatGPT or other LLMs offer. But this all changed with the launch of Shopify’s Horizon’s editions.
Going live in Summer of 2025, Shopify Horizons introduced:
Both of which are powered through Shopify’s sidekick tool.
Whilst that’s only two tools on paper, the development capabilities are massive. But before we get into the weeds of these tools too much…
Whilst there may be some distrust surrounding the accuracy of the tools, they certainly do provide some benefit - to those well-versed in website development, but especially to those who aren’t.
Shopify’s generative AI tools certainly work at a break-neck pace. If you ask for a block to be developed - one that might usually take 5-10 minutes to code from scratch - it’s ready in about 10 seconds.
Once a new code block or theme has been added, you can further refine your initial prompt with additional customisation options.
For example, if you prompted “build me an image carousel where site visitors can click through product images” Sidekick might generate a carousel with the option to input 5 images. From here, you could prompt “I would like no limit on the number of images I can add” and Sidekick will adjust the code it’s generated as a result.
For a person without development skills, the capabilities a tool like this opens up is indescribable. Only bound by your imagination, these tools can revolutionise your website.
The only thing required to get access to Shopify’s AI tools is a paid-for Shopify store, which means anyone with a business on the platform can use the tools effectively.
Whilst the tools deserve their praise, there are some significant drawbacks that should deter larger businesses from employing them as part of an ecommerce store build.
Whilst this may change in the future, as of writing you are unable to look into the code generated by Shopify’s Ai tools. Even if you do a thorough inspection of the page, the code is nowhere to be found.
This means, if you as a developer, would like to make any minor tweaks to the code, you simply can’t.
This causes a second problem too. It’s a common development practice to copy segments of code you’ve written on one site, and reuse them on another. If you’ve worked hard on developing a custom feature, being able to copy and paste it for another use case is sure to save you time. With Shopify’s AI-generated code though, you don’t have that option. This means if you’re particularly fond of a segment, you can’t recreate an exact version of it on another site
Leading on from the previous point. If you’ve previously generated a theme block with AI, good luck recreating it. Inputting the same prompt two different times, will almost certainly generate a different result on each occasion.
This means, if you’re fond of a theme block, you unfortunately won’t be able to recreate it on another website
Shopify’s AI-generated themes and theme blocks do not take into consideration the wider website you are generating.
Whilst it would be impressive if they did consider wider user journeys and other touchpoints, not only do they not do that, but they don’t even consider the existing styling of the site and will instead enforce their own. This means Shopify Sidekick’s code can look quite out of place.
What do Shopify’s AI Tools mean for us?
Now that we’ve weighed the major pros and cons of Shopify’s AI tools for developers, let’s think about what they mean for the completion of a full website.
Anyone who’s ran a Shopify Site previously will know that even the smallest of changes can negatively impact conversion rate. Something as simple as changing the text on a CTA can have a significant impact. So it’s not an exaggeration to say that AI-generated code could single handedly tank your conversion rate if not monitored sufficiently.
And as we’ve mentioned before, You can’t edit the code once it’s live.
The cat and mouse game of knowing there’s an issue on a site, but not knowing where it stems from is one of the single most frustrating challenges for developers building ecommerce stores.
With a lack of access to AI-generated theme blocks, we can only expect this to become more of an issue - creating mystery bugs that you simply can’t rectify.
Whilst we have yet to see a live example of this, we can only imagine the issues this could cause.
There’s a whole other conversation to be had around the usage of AI from an ethical standpoint and how that could negatively impact a brand’s image - that’s not a conversation we’ll be touching on here. Moreso, it’s the traditional ways a website can impact a brand’s image. Whether it’s a buggy site or a slow loading one, Shopify’s AI generated code has the capability to turn site visitors away all on its own.
Do Shopify’s AI development tools present tremendous opportunities to ecommerce businesses with minimal development skills? Yes!
Do Shopify’s AI tools pose significant risk for larger ecommerce businesses with significant customer bases? Also yes!
The speed and accessibility of AI-generated themes and theme blocks may make custom website development an option for entrepreneurs or small business owners who are looking to build a non-technical store.
But, the current limitations are too large to ignore for businesses worth their salt, with the inability to edit, inspect, or reuse generated code makes you dependent on Shopify's AI system and It only takes one poorly optimized user journey or unexplainable bug to lose thousands in revenue.
For rapid prototyping and experimentation, Shopify's AI capabilities may be something fun to play around with, but for production-critical components and complex, custom implementations, human oversight and control remain essential.
As AI continues to evolve at breakneck speed, we can expect Shopify and other platforms to address these limitations. But until then, the most successful approach is a human one.
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