Winter '26 Edition: Shopify's new AI phase and what changes for your e-commerce.

Shopify follows a solid innovation cycle: every six months, a new edition is released to signal the platform's direction and consolidate its evolution.

The Winter '26 Edition – Renaissance represents exactly that: a consistent evolution, focusing on performance, artificial intelligence, operations, and smoother experiences for both sellers and buyers.

This edition aims for more agile stores, faster decisions, and a more structured operation, without requiring complexity from the retailer.

To make it easier for you to read, we have compiled the essential points that deserve attention.

1. The Renaissance Milestone: AI at the heart of the Shopify experience

Winter '26 ushers in a shift in mindset within Shopify. Previously, AI appeared as a complementary resource, something that helped with specific tasks. Now, it is treated as the foundation of the platform, influencing all layers of the operation: catalog, navigation, marketing, development, checkout, and customer support.

This means that Shopify is rebuilding its internal logic to provide merchants with a smarter, less operational experience. Instead of relying on external solutions or manual processes, the platform itself anticipates problems, suggests solutions, structures data, and facilitates decision-making.

2. The most complete and useful sidekick in operation.

Sidekick has evolved. Now it helps with tasks, guides configurations, creates workflows, reviews data, and even anticipates opportunities through the new Sidekick Pulse feature, which analyzes your store's context and displays alerts or suggestions directly in the admin panel.

Summary of Sidekick's new capabilities

• Sidekick can be opened in full screen, giving you more space to perform complex tasks.
• It provides contextual answers as you click on different areas of the admin panel.
• It allows you to quickly create B2B businesses within Shopify.
• Generates custom blocks in any theme available on the Shopify Theme Store.
• It helps you find, compare, and install apps that meet your store's needs.
• It remembers user preferences, conversations, and history to offer more personalized guidance.
• Check your balance in Shopify Balance and you can make transfers with your approval.

3. Agentic Storefronts

Shopify connects store products directly to agents like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Microsoft Copilot , allowing shoppers to discover and purchase products within the conversations themselves.

• No extra integrations.
• The retailer chooses where they want to appear.
• Conversions and assignments are recorded in the admin panel.
• The checkout process and customer relationship remain the responsibility of the retailer.

This feature will be available soon. Sign up to be notified.

4. Rollouts + SimGym: Smart experimentation within Shopify

Shopify has brought together two powerful tools to help merchants validate changes more securely and accurately.

With Rollouts , it's possible to test store variations, schedule launches, and measure the direct impact on customer behavior, all natively, without relying on external apps.

Complementing this, the SimGym app uses AI to simulate how different buyer profiles would navigate your store, allowing you to evaluate themes, journeys, and ideas even before receiving real traffic. This reduces risks, accelerates validations, and provides confidence for both small businesses and large brands.

Together, these tools make experimentation much more accessible, strategic, and integrated into the retailer's daily routine.

This feature will be available soon. Sign up to be notified.

5. Overall improvement in themes, catalog, and store experience.

This edition includes a comprehensive package of structural improvements that make everyday life easier:

Store themes and experience

• Over 250 improvements to the Horizon theme, bringing animations, interactive sections, and better performance.
• More precise topic searches, with better filters and more relevant suggestions.
• Possibility of generating an initial theme using AI, simply by describing the type of store desired.

Catalog and products

• Products can have up to 2048 variants, expanding the capacity for complex catalogs.
• The unlisted status allows you to hide items from searches and collections, while maintaining access via a direct link.
• Compare prices directly in the admin panel, no spreadsheets needed.
• Prices per unit (weight, volume, length, or unit) available globally.
• Collections have become more flexible, with duplication and conditional rules for organizing products.

Bundles and discounts

• The range of options within Shopify Bundles has become more comprehensive.
• Automatic discounts for specific groups, such as VIP customers.

Performance and store creation

• Quickly create B2B companies in the admin panel.
  

Login and customer experience

• Automatic login with iOS 26 passcode.
• Log in with Google or Facebook.
• Faster login for Shop users.
• Customers can edit their email address with code verification.
• Login screen texts can be customized.

6. Native AI development platform

Shopify has expanded its platform for developers, enabling them to:

• Create dev stores, structure apps, and execute GraphQL operations with AI.
• Generate validated code using natural language.
• Use MCP components for rich and consistent interfaces.
• Search through hundreds of millions of products via Shopify Catalog .
  
  

This increases speed, reduces effort, and frees developers to focus on architecture and business logic.

7. Shop Pay Installments

Initially launched in the United Kingdom , it now allows installment payments for up to 24 months , integrated directly into Shopify checkout.

Initial results:

• +20% increase in AOV.
• +16% compared to other installment providers.
• Low reimbursement rates.
• (Not yet available in countries without Shopify Payments.)

8. Analytics: Cleaner, deeper, and truly actionable data

Shopify is making it clear that better decisions start with better data.
Winter '26 brings a series of enhancements that make reports more accurate, more visual, and much more useful for decision-makers on a daily basis.

• AI-powered chargebacks: the platform automatically generates comprehensive summaries with tracking data, applicable policies, and order context — reducing dispute time and increasing accuracy.
  
  
• Analytics heatmaps: now it's possible to visualize behavior by hour and day of the week, highlighting traffic and sales peaks.
  
  
• Smart bot filter: removes fake accesses, resulting in more realistic conversion rates and more reliable reports.
  
  
• Refined date and time controls: perfect for monitoring flash sales, price drops, and campaigns with immediate impact.
  
  
• Unified view for multiple stores (Plus): all operations in a single dashboard, with quick comparison between units.
  
  
• Customizable featured items: you choose how many products appear in the reports, creating more relevant views for your business.
  

9. More stable orders, inventory, and automation.

Winter '26 also strengthens the most sensitive areas of the operation: orders, inventory, security, and automation.

What changes in practice:

• Orders are easier to manage: new filters by metafields, weight, value, and other criteria help to quickly identify what needs attention.
• Automatic adjustments to taxes and duties: when editing unfulfilled orders, the platform recalculates everything instantly, reducing errors and rework.
• Cleaner refunds: it's possible to apply post-fulfillment discounts to correct charges while maintaining tax accuracy.
• More reliable inventory: unlimited 180-day history, protection against overselling in flash sales, and warnings before bulk changes.
  
  
• Passwordless access: login via biometrics, face, or PIN makes the process more secure and convenient.
• Shopify Flow is more powerful: test flows before publishing, cancel executions, and use a redesigned editor that makes complex automations easier.

Conclusion

The Winter '26 Edition shows that Shopify is entering a new phase: smarter, more integrated, and much better prepared for the real pace of operations. AI as infrastructure, native automation, accessible experimentation, cleaner data, a more robust POS, more flexible B2B—everything points to a more agile and less manual commerce.

And, as always, each advancement opens up new opportunities (and new challenges) in the operation.

If you want to understand how to strategically apply these new features to your store, or how to leverage this moment to improve your store's performance and structure, get in touch and let's build this next phase together.

We can help you.

Alce Rocks is not just an agency; we are a benchmark in Shopify Plus projects in Latin America and have been official Shopify partners since before its arrival in Brazil.

Your project can benefit from our consulting services at every stage: migration, planning, design, custom solution architecture, development, and ongoing support. In addition, we offer exclusive content, audits, apps, and migration packages to ensure you get the most out of everything Shopify has to offer.

Let's talk? Just share your project details here.