What Shopify Sidekick Actually Does in Your Admin, and What It Can’t

On September 15, 2026, Shopify began rolling out a new look for the admin, and Shopify’s changelog entry for the redesign (opens in new tab) says Sidekick “has moved from a side panel to a floating chat at the bottom of every page.” The new look rolls out gradually, so your admin may still show the older layout. Shopify’s Getting started with Sidekick page (opens in new tab) notes that the Sidekick icon and input window might be in a different spot than the article describes while that happens.

Three months earlier, on June 17, 2026, Shopify’s Spring ’26 announcement (opens in new tab) introduced Sidekick App Extensions, which Shopify says link third-party apps into Sidekick so a single conversation can pull answers and take actions across your tools. The same announcement put Sidekick Pulse on a redesigned admin Home and extended Shopify Sidekick to Apple Watch.

The facts below come from Shopify’s Help Center, developer docs, newsroom, Editions page, pricing page and changelog as they read in September 2026. Shopify revises these pages often, so re-read the one your decision depends on.

We build Shopify stores and the automations that run them, and Sidekick now sits inside that work. This is the breakdown we’d give a client deciding what to hand it.

Shopify’s Sidekick overview (opens in new tab) describes it as “an AI-enabled commerce assistant in your Shopify admin, to get guidance, generate content, build apps, and complete tasks using everyday language.” Shopify says Sidekick works in two modes: you chat with it to ask questions and complete tasks, or it surfaces recommendations through Sidekick Pulse on your admin Home. For longer tasks, the same page says Shopify Sidekick keeps working in the background after you close the chat or navigate away, then notifies you when the result is ready for review.

According to Shopify’s Getting started with Sidekick page (opens in new tab), you can chat with Sidekick from Home or any other page in the Shopify admin, on desktop, mobile and tablet, through text chat or voice and screen sharing. Shopify says “Sidekick uses the page you’re on as context for your question,” so asking about an order while it’s open on screen gives Sidekick that order to work from. When a request is missing details, Sidekick asks a clarifying question, and Shopify’s Spring ’26 Editions page (opens in new tab) adds that it can offer multiple choice answers to speed that up.

Shopify limits what Sidekick does on smaller surfaces. The Getting started page (opens in new tab) says “Sidekick on Apple Watch can answer questions, but can’t make changes to your store or navigate the admin,” and that it doesn’t currently run when you open the Shopify admin in a mobile browser. On a phone, Shopify Sidekick runs in the Shopify app, which Shopify’s Spring ’26 announcement (opens in new tab) says carries Sidekick on every screen through typing or voice.

Shopify’s overview says Sidekick “presents changes for your review before applying them,” and Shopify’s Getting started page (opens in new tab) lists the same rule as a limitation: Sidekick “can’t make changes to your store without your approval, and will only present options for you to review and approve.” Shopify’s Pulse page (opens in new tab) applies it to proactive suggestions too: “You review and approve each change before it’s applied.”

On orders, Shopify’s help and guidance page for Sidekick (opens in new tab) says “The order updates only after you review the changes and click Update order.” A draft order is saved only after you review it and click Save. When Sidekick generates content in a field, Shopify highlights that field in purple so you can see what was added.

Shopify’s Winter ’26 announcement (opens in new tab) from December 10, 2025 says Sidekick “can also build code and make changes directly, all with your oversight.” The help docs still put an approval step in front of every change. Plan around the help-doc rule: Shopify Sidekick proposes, and the person who clicks accept owns the result.

Everything in this section is Shopify’s description of its own product, from its Help Center and changelog. It’s grouped by the kind of work you’d hand over.

Shopify’s help and guidance page (opens in new tab) says “Sidekick can also navigate to any Shopify admin page based on your instructions,” and either handles a task directly or walks you through the steps. For analytics, Shopify says Sidekick can generate custom ShopifyQL queries in the query editor, display line, donut or bar charts, and export reports to CSV, Parquet, JSONL or XML. Shopify notes that export links expire after 10 minutes if they aren’t downloaded.

Shopify’s Generating content with Sidekick page (opens in new tab) adds that “Sidekick can create and edit reports based on your prompts in plain language.” That covers showing key metrics in the chat, creating a new data exploration, saving a modified report as a new exploration, and generating or refining a report’s ShopifyQL query. Staff who’ve never written ShopifyQL can get a custom report by describing it, though someone still has to read the query to confirm it measures what they asked for.

Shopify says “Sidekick fills in forms based on your chat instructions,” and the help and guidance page (opens in new tab) lists where: fields on any admin page, products, discounts, collections, customers, B2B companies, order edits, and draft orders. For draft orders, Shopify notes that some details depend on your plan, store setup and staff permissions. Its example is that Sidekick “can set payment terms only when your permissions allow it, and can add a deposit only on the Shopify Plus plan and only when the draft order already has payment terms.”

The same Shopify page says Sidekick can tell you how much money is in your Shopify Balance accounts and help you move money between them or to an external account you’ve added as a payee, with a Preview step before you complete the transfer request. Shopify’s September 15, 2025 changelog entry (opens in new tab) limited that release to US stores using Balance.

Shopify’s Generating content page (opens in new tab) says “Sidekick lets you create discount codes and automatic discounts,” and lists amount off product discounts, amount off order discounts and free shipping discounts. Shopify says Sidekick also creates custom customer segments from natural language, updates metafield values and metaobject entries, and helps write emails, edit store content and generate blog posts. For text generation, the page adds “You should always review the changes before accepting.”

Generated images stay out of your store until you save one. Shopify says an unsaved image “remains private between you and Sidekick in your chat history,” and that image generation limits depend on your Shopify plan and are shared by everyone who works in the store. On the same Shopify page (opens in new tab), reference image uploads for Sidekick must be under 5MB, in JPEG, PNG or WebP, with a maximum of 3 files.

Inside Shopify Messaging email, Shopify says (opens in new tab) Sidekick can generate or edit text, edit the design, generate images and recommend or create segments, once you’ve already started the campaign. Sidekick can also recommend, help set up and summarize Campaign Autopilot, which Shopify describes as “the marketing agent in your Shopify admin that creates and runs marketing campaigns across your connected channels,” and which Shopify’s August 4, 2026 changelog entry (opens in new tab) lists as available in early access.

Shopify’s Sidekick overview (opens in new tab) lists product descriptions among the content Sidekick can write, and Shopify Magic (opens in new tab) text generation also produces them. Our guide to writing Shopify product descriptions with AI covers that workflow and the QA it needs.

Shopify’s Generating content page (opens in new tab) says “Sidekick can create or edit workflows in Shopify Flow based on a description of the workflow that you want,” as long as the Flow app is open in your admin. Shopify’s Flow documentation (opens in new tab) adds three constraints: you must be on a desktop device to generate workflows, workflows generated by Sidekick are Inactive by default until you turn them on manually, and Sidekick “might omit business-specific logic in complex workflows that you need to refine before using the workflow.” Building, testing and reviewing those workflows is covered in our guide to Shopify Flow automations.

Shopify’s help and guidance page (opens in new tab) says “Sidekick can modify theme settings and make recommendations to help you achieve a particular style with your store.” Shopify attaches two rules: “You must be currently in the theme editor for Sidekick to make suggestions or changes to a theme,” and “You must manually save any changes that Sidekick applies to themes.” The listed scope is global theme settings plus the settings of sections and blocks already on the page, covering text, number, range, color, radio and checkbox settings.

Shopify’s Generating apps page (opens in new tab) states that “Generating apps with Sidekick is available only to stores on the Grow plan, Advanced plan, and Shopify Plus plan.” Staff need the App development > Develop permission to generate or edit apps, hourly and weekly limits apply, and Shopify says app generation works only in Sidekick in the admin from a desktop web browser.

Shopify says “Generated apps only work within the Shopify admin,” aren’t visible to customers, and can’t reach themes, checkout or customer account apps. The same page (opens in new tab) lists Admin API access to orders, products, customers, discounts, content and analytics, and warns that “Generated apps can change customer-facing data in your store.” An app your customers never see can still change the product and discount data they do see, so review a Sidekick-generated app the way you’d review any custom app before it runs against live data.

Shopify’s Spring ’26 newsroom post (opens in new tab) says “Sidekick App Extensions connect third-party apps directly to Sidekick,” and put them live for 15+ partners as of June 17, 2026, naming Klaviyo, Loop and Smile. Shopify’s help and guidance page (opens in new tab) gives its own examples of supported apps: Klaviyo: Email Marketing & SMS, Judge.me Product Reviews App, and Seguno Email Marketing.

Approval runs per conversation. Shopify says “Before Sidekick uses an installed app, it asks for your approval,” and “After you approve, the app is activated for the current conversation only,” so approving an app in one chat doesn’t carry over to the next.

For app developers, Shopify’s Sidekick app extension docs (opens in new tab) describe data extensions, which let Sidekick search your app’s data and which Shopify says to keep read-only, and action extensions, which take the merchant to the right page in your app. Shopify’s docs currently cap Sidekick at 20 app integrations per user on a store. Its content rules for extensions list “Use Sidekick to sell.” among the things not to do.

Shopify’s skills page (opens in new tab) says “Sidekick skills are saved prompts that you can reuse with custom shortcuts,” and you can save up to 25 of them. Shopify says skills can be shared with other merchants by URL.

Shopify’s memory page (opens in new tab) says “Sidekick remembers your past conversations for about 3 months” and can refer to your admin activity from about the last 12 hours. You can turn memory off for one conversation, but Shopify says you can’t turn it back on for that same conversation, and deleting a conversation removes it from both your chat history and Sidekick’s memory. Conversations with Sidekick in the theme editor aren’t added to memory, and Shopify’s December 10, 2025 changelog entry on Sidekick memory (opens in new tab) says memory is kept at the user level.

On Shopify’s voice and screen sharing page (opens in new tab), voice mode is offered on desktop, mobile devices and Apple Watch, and “Sidekick automatically detects and responds in the language you’re speaking.” Shopify says screen sharing in Sidekick is in early access and only available from the admin in a desktop browser.

Shopify’s Pulse page (opens in new tab) says “Sidekick Pulse is in early access and is available only to certain merchants.” Where it’s available, Shopify says Pulse shows up to 5 suggested actions at a time, is limited to stores with recent sales activity, and requires the store owner or a staff member with admin access. Shopify’s Spring ’26 announcement (opens in new tab) describes Pulse as turning your store’s sales, traffic and inventory into next best actions on a redesigned admin Home.

Shopify also requires Shopify Network Intelligence to be activated for Sidekick Pulse. Shopify’s Network Intelligence requirements page (opens in new tab) says that when it’s enabled, “Shopify will securely use your customer data together with customer data from other merchants to generate insights that power advanced features, known as Enhanced Services, to make running your business easier.” The page also sets requirements for notifying your customers, so turning on Pulse is a data-sharing decision for whoever owns your privacy policy, as well as a feature choice.

Shopify’s Getting started with Sidekick page (opens in new tab) lists five limitations under its considerations for using Sidekick, in this order:

Other limits appear further down the same page (opens in new tab) and across Shopify’s Sidekick documentation. In the Shopify app, Sidekick isn’t available while a dialog is open over the main screen, and on a tablet it isn’t available in the Online Store Editor. Apple Watch answers questions without making changes, app and Flow generation need a desktop, and theme changes happen only in the theme editor and only stick when you save them.

In Shopify, the AI that chats with customers is the Inbox agent. Shopify’s Inbox documentation (opens in new tab) says “Shopify Inbox includes an Inbox agent that you can turn on to chat with customers automatically,” and calls it an opt-in feature.

The one documented crossover is in the Inbox agent persona settings (opens in new tab), which say: “Click Refine with Sidekick to get suggestions for tone, wording, personality, and service style based on your business needs.” That’s Sidekick helping you configure the customer-facing agent. Choosing and setting up that side is covered in our guide to AI shopping assistants and conversational commerce.

Shopify’s Help Center (opens in new tab) still describes Shopify Magic as “a suite of free AI-powered features that are integrated across Shopify’s products and workflows to make it easier for you to start, run, and grow your business.” Sidekick appears as one section of that Magic page, alongside text generation, media generation, theme generation, theme block generation, app review summaries, customer spend projections and customer segments.

On Shopify’s marketing site, shopify.com/magic (opens in new tab) now redirects to shopify.com/sidekick (opens in new tab). As of September 2026, the Help Center’s Shopify Magic page still carries a Sidekick section, while its AI-powered tools hub lists Sidekick and Shopify Magic as separate tools, and the marketing site sends Magic traffic to the Sidekick page.

What counts as Shopify AI beyond Sidekick? Shopify’s AI-powered tools hub (opens in new tab) groups Sidekick and Shopify Magic as tools that are part of Shopify, alongside Tinker, which it calls “a free mobile app with more than 100 AI tools for creating images, videos, and brand assets for your store,” and connections to third-party AI tools such as ChatGPT, Claude and Perplexity. Shopify’s page on connecting third-party AI tools (opens in new tab) says it covers AI tools you connect to a store you own. For making your products discoverable to shoppers who use AI assistants, Shopify points to agentic storefronts, Selling on ChatGPT and the Agentic plan instead.

Shopify’s pricing page (opens in new tab) lists Sidekick in its “Always included” section under the heading “Built-in assistant,” and its plan comparison table marks the row “Sidekick, AI assistant for commerce” as included, with no add-on price. Individual Shopify Sidekick features carry their own documented gates:

Starter plan availability for Sidekick isn’t documented, and Shopify’s pricing comparison table (opens in new tab) covers Basic, Grow, Advanced and Plus. The Sidekick Help Center pages we read don’t list supported languages or regions for Sidekick chat. The Shopify Magic page’s (opens in new tab) line that generally available features are “available to all plans and in all languages” is about Magic features and doesn’t name Sidekick.

Shopify’s store permissions page (opens in new tab) doesn’t mention Sidekick, and no page we read states a general rule for how Sidekick treats staff permissions. The requirements Shopify does publish are per feature: the Develop permission for app generation, owner or admin access for Pulse, and staff permissions for draft order payment terms.

Sort Sidekick tasks by what a mistake would touch. Reports, ShopifyQL queries, navigation and questions about your own data don’t change the store, so they’re the lowest-risk place to start. A wrong answer there costs a re-check rather than a customer-facing error.

Form fills, discounts, segments, order edits and theme settings all stop at a review screen, a Save button or an Update order button. Hand them to Sidekick when the person approving can tell a correct result from a plausible one. A discount with the wrong eligibility or a segment with the wrong filter looks finished on the review screen.

Three kinds of Sidekick output need a named owner before they go live: Flow workflows, which start inactive and can omit business logic; generated apps, which Shopify says can change customer-facing data; and Shopify Messaging emails, which reach customers once you send them. On client stores, those three get a second reviewer before anything is activated or sent.

Keep two decisions with a person outright. Enabling Shopify Network Intelligence for Pulse is a data-sharing choice, and customer conversations belong to the Inbox agent or your support team, because Shopify says Sidekick can’t handle them.

If you want Sidekick drafting more of your admin work without errors reaching your customers, our Shopify automation services team builds and reviews the Flow workflows and automations around it. Start with a free Growth Audit: a no-obligation look at why you aren’t getting found or converting, with a roadmap for fixing it. Not a sales call. Not a quote request.

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