Shopify launched a new skill that lets any AI agent act as a personal shopper tied to the buyer’s Shop account, so agents no longer need a direct partnership like the one Shopify struck with Meta’s Muse in September.
Once a shopper signs in, the agent can search more than a billion products in Shopify Catalog, read past orders to learn sizes and tastes, and check out with Shop Pay inside the chat. Shoppers can set their own rules and criteria, such as a max budget or how fast they need the item delivered, but they still have to approve each purchase before it happens by default.
Agents can also use Shop Pay to buy from stores that don’t run on Shopify. In those cases, the shopper approves the store, the purchase, a saved card, and a spending limit inside Shop, and Shop Pay issues a single-use card that only works for that checkout. It’s a smart safeguard, and it also shows how Shopify is positioning Shop Pay to be the default wallet for all agentic commerce, not just for Shopify stores. (Sorry, PayPal.)
The big thing: Agents don’t have to register or partner with Shopify to gain access to the skill and only have to identify themselves with a profile URL on each request. That’s more fair by nature, since no one wants more gatekeepers deciding which agents get to shop and which don’t, but unfettered access also means Shopify is opening the door to every agent out there, including poorly built ones that buy the wrong size, and malicious ones that try to game the system.
Shopify also opened the Shop MCP behind the skill to developers through shop.dev, giving them one API for catalog search, Shop sign-in, Shop Pay checkout, and order tracking, with orders going straight into the merchant’s admin.
Shopify and Amazon are taking wildly opposite approaches to third-party agentic commerce.
Amazon is busy playing whack-a-mole with every AI agent that tries to shop on its platform, while Shopify is across the street with one of those wacky waving inflatable arm flailing tubemen inviting them in the front door.
Not only is Shopify welcoming agents, it’s also laying the groundwork for them to make money, like digital influencers. Through a program called Promoted Placements, currently in an invite-only preview, developers can show promoted products in their agent’s search results and earn a commission when shoppers buy them. Shopify is paying a 0.3% base commission for now, which comes out of its payment processing fee (ie: not paid by the merchant), but merchants will eventually be able to add their own commission on top.
We’re definitely moving towards a pay-to-play scenario with agentic commerce, and Shopify is leading the way.
