Shopify president sees AI agents as the future of e-commerce

Shopify, the second-largest e-commerce provider in the U.S. behind Amazon, is preparing to integrate AI-driven agentic shopping. Speaking at the Upfront Summit, Shopify President Harley Finkelstein positioned these tools as the next evolution of e-commerce. Agentic shopping—defined as AI-driven shopping agents that can discover, buy, and compare products for consumers—is predicted to be the future of shopping. Finkelstein noted that the company plans to begin using these agentic applications as personal shoppers.

According to Finkelstein, agentic shopping is fundamentally merit-based. He contrasted this with standard search engines: if a user searches for sneakers, they are typically directed to mass retailers like Footlocker. However, Finkelstein argued that once an agentic shopper learns a user’s specific preference—such as the brand On—it will better represent those specific options rather than defaulting to mass retailers. While critics point out that current search engines already tailor results based on a user’s search and browsing history, Finkelstein maintains that chat applications will act as more authentic personal shoppers. “We’re still going to be influenced by the people we see, the people we watch on social media, on television, but I think the chat application is actually a more authentic personal shopper because it’s generally not on commission,” said Harley Finkelstein, president of Shopify.

This shift could address a major bottleneck in online retail. Currently, about 18% of retail purchases in the U.S. are made online. Shopify, which ranks as the second-largest e-commerce provider in the country, believes that agentic shopping will help increase this online retail penetration. The technology is expected to play a major role in surfacing new brands to customers, helping its long tail of smaller, niche merchants. Finkelstein expressed significant optimism for this development, stating that the company is more excited about this particular new era of commerce than it has ever been because of the opportunities it is expected to create.

Why it matters

Shopify is positioning AI agents as a way to bypass traditional search engine limitations, aiming to surface niche brands and increase online retail penetration in the U.S., where currently only about 18% of purchases are made online.