Sidekick is Shopify’s digital AI assistant that is available 24/7 and always has your back. It is designed to reduce the amount of time you spend on admin and help you run a more efficient and competitive Shopify store.
If you haven’t yet got to grips with how to use Sidekick, understanding its capabilities and then integrating it into your daily operations could transform the way you work. When used strategically, Sidekick can dramatically reduce your workload, help you make starter business decisions, and give your store a competitive edge.
In this article, we’ll break down exactly what Sidekick is and what it can do, sharing handy prompts and practical tips to help you start using it more strategically.
What is Shopify Sidekick?
Shopify Sidekick is part of the Shopify Magic suite of AI tools. It is your dedicated digital assistant who never sleeps, designed to help Shopify merchants manage everyday eCommerce operations, analyse performance, and identify opportunities for growth.
When Shopify Sidekick first launched in 2023, it was a simple chatbot that merchants could use to get answers to common questions and carry out simple tasks.
Now, in 2026, it’s a much more powerful and proactive tool that can do everything from building a custom app to generating an email campaign – all you have to do is ask!
Available 24/7 within the Shopify admin panel, Sidekick can now even use real-time store data to offer proactive recommendations and next steps, to help you improve performance and grow your store.
What can Shopify Sidekick do?
Shopify Sidekick is a powerful AI tool; it doesn’t just provide answers to questions, it assists with a whole range of operational, creative, strategic, and analytical tasks. Let’s learn more about how it can help.
Operations
Want to stop wasting time on low-level administrative tasks? Then why not delegate them to Sidekick using natural language prompts?
Here are some examples of the kinds of operational tasks that Sidekick can carry out for you:
- Create discount codes.
- Update inventory settings.
- Update product descriptions at scale.
- Adjust theme content blocks.
- Generate customer segments.
- Build custom apps.
- Build workflows.
Asking Sidekick to carry out these kinds of jobs can save you a significant amount of time and money, and help to free up more of your time and mental bandwidth for strategic business planning.
Image Credit: Screenshot from Sidekick’s Improved Streaming Experience blog post
Analysis
When you ask Sidekick the right questions, you can quickly gain clear and valuable insights into your store’s performance.
Sidekick has direct access to all your store’s data, allowing it to analyse sales trends, inventory, customer behaviour, and marketing performance in seconds. A task that is otherwise arduous and time-consuming, requiring you to export reports, filter spreadsheets, and navigate multiple dashboards.
Instead, you can ask Sidekick a question like:
- “Show me a list of customers who spent over $200 last year but haven’t purchased anything in the last 3 months.”
- “Which products had the highest return rate last month?”
- “What was my best-performing sales channel this quarter?”
- “Which products are frequently purchased together?”
Sidekick can quickly provide you with the insights you need to make faster, more informed decisions.
Image Credit: Screenshot from Sidekick’s Improved Streaming Experience blog post
Creativity
In addition to carrying out administrative tasks, Sidekick can also assist with ideation. It can generate content, refine messaging, and even help with light design adjustments.
Examples of creative tasks it can help with include:
- Generate email campaigns.
- Write SEO meta descriptions and product descriptions.
- Suggest promotional ideas.
- Edit product imagery.
While it can’t replace a senior designer or brand strategist, it’s very effective at carrying out low-level creative tasks, creating first drafts, and reducing creative bottlenecks.
Personalised recommendations
In 2026, Sidekick doesn’t just wait for you to ask it questions. Since the Shopify Winter ’26 update, new features have allowed Sidekick to proactively monitor performance, look for opportunities, and then suggest actions.
Which brings us to Shopify Pulse.
What new features did the Winter ’26 update add to Shopify Sidekick?
Sidekick Pulse is a new AI feature that was released as part of Shopify’s Winter ’26 update, “The RenAIssance Edition“.
Sidekick Pulse proactively monitors your store’s performance and market trends and then generates recommendations when it identifies an opportunity. Merchants can view their ‘Pulse Card’ on their Shopify admin home.
Each Pulse recommendation includes a clear summary of what’s happening, why it matters, and then offers actionable next steps.
Real Examples of Pulse Alerts:
- Inventory Alert: “The ‘Matte Black Tumbler’ is selling 40% faster than usual. At this rate, you will run out of stock in 3 days. Would you like to draft a PO for your supplier?”
- Pricing Opportunity: “Competitors have raised prices on similar ‘Hiking Boots’ by 15%. Your margin is currently lower than the category average. Suggest increasing the price to £120?”
- Dead Stock Flag: “The ‘Yellow Raincoat’ has 0 views this week. Would you like to create a ‘Flash Sale’ email campaign to drive traffic?”
The shift from offering reactive assistance to proactive recommendations is what now gives Sidekick real strategic value.
Not all stores are eligible for Sidekick Pulse, and you must enable Shopify Network Intelligence before you can use it.
How to activate Shopify Sidekick and Pulse
Shopify Sidekick is available to all Shopify merchants, regardless of what plan they’re on. It doesn’t require a separate app or installation; you can start interacting with it from anywhere in the Shopify admin panel. Just look for the little icon of the masked face – that’s your Sidekick!
If your store is eligible for Sidekick Pulse, but you haven’t used it before, you may need to switch it on first. To do so, go to your Shopify admin and look for the Pulse card. If it’s available for your store, you can simply click the Pulse card to activate it. You can then view Pulse recommendations from the Pulse card or within your Sidekick conversation history.
Pulse can only be activated if you already have Shopify Network Intelligence enabled in your store’s privacy settings.
Three practical prompts to try in Shopify Sidekick
To help you get started and demonstrate what Sidekick can do, we’ve created three strategic prompts for you to try:
Prompt 1: The Profit Audit
Helps you to optimise your product descriptions to reduce returns and the associated administrative burden.
“Analyse my orders from last month. Which 3 products had the highest return rate, and what were the most common reasons cited in the return comments? Suggest changes to the product descriptions to fix this.”
Prompt 2: The Bundle Builder
Helps you to uncover overlooked revenue opportunities.
“Look at my sales data. Which two products are most frequently bought together but are not currently offered as a bundle? Create a draft ‘Bundle Product’ for these items with a 10% discount.”
Prompt 3: The SEO Overhaul
“Audit the SEO meta description for my ‘Best Sellers’ collection. Rewrite it to include high-volume keywords related to ‘sustainable fashion’ and keep it under 160 characters.”
Helps you to improve technical optimisation to attract more traffic quickly.
What are the limitations of Shopify Sidekick?
While Sidekick is a powerful assistant, it is not a replacement for human creativity or strategy. When using it, it’s important to bear these four limitations in mind.
- It can’t interact directly with customers: Sidekick cannot answer live chat queries from shoppers (for that, you need a separate customer service AI agent).
- It may not ‘see’ data within third-party apps: Sidekick can see all the data within Shopify, but if you also use niche third-party apps, Sidekick may not be able to access the information within them.
- Creative output is functional: Sidekick can write code, generate content, and make basic theme edits, but its creative output is functional. It won’t design a beautiful, award-winning homepage banner—it will just place the elements where you tell it to.
- It works within the limits of your data: Sidekick only understands the data available to it. It doesn’t understand the wider context of your business strategy. Therefore, its recommendations should be used to inform your decisions only, not to replace human judgment.
Is Shopify Sidekick worth using?
If you’re running a Shopify store and not using Sidekick, chances are you’re working harder than you need to be.
While Sidekick can’t take over from you, it can dramatically improve your operational efficiency.
For merchants running a Shopify store solo, Sidekick can act as your analyst and operations assistant, carrying out administrative tasks, drafting content, running reports, and helping you make smarter business decisions. For larger enterprise businesses, Sidekick Pulse can monitor performance 24/7, providing real-time recommendations to help give your store a competitive advantage.
Partner with Create8 to grow your eCommerce business
Looking for more ways to make your Shopify store work harder and grow your eCommerce empire? At Create8, we’re proud to be a Shopify partner, helping Shopify brands to go beyond the basics and build high-performance stores that are optimised for conversions.
Whether you need help with Shopify web design and development or advice on how to integrate Sidekick into your daily operations, our team can help you start running a more efficient eCommerce store. Contact us today by calling 0161 820 9689 or emailing hello@create8.co.uk.
