Renaissance for the modern era: Winter '26 Edition reimagines what's possible

Tools don't create masterpieces. People do. Michelangelo's chisel was simply a conduit for his vision and da Vinci changed the world with no more than ink and a notebook.

Today’s entrepreneurs build upon this creative legacy with modern tools that multiply the impact of their ideas while preserving their unique perspectives. We’re at the edge of a renaissance moment in commerce.

Winter '26 Edition arrives packed with over 150 launches and enhancements, all centered around a simple but powerful idea: AI will amplify human creativity. In this transformative period that rivals 14th-century Florence, merchants stand as the modern pioneers crafting the future.

Here’s what’s inside.

Sidekick evolves from assistant to collaborator

At the heart of Winter '26 Edition is Sidekick. It’s a tool experiencing a renaissance of its own, evolving from a reactive assistant to a proactive collaborator that predicts merchant needs and suggests action. It can also build code and make changes directly, all with your oversight.

Sidekick’s evolution goes beyond answering your questions. It now anticipates, takes initiative, and transforms simple conversations into executing on complex tasks like theme editing—all while knowing the commerce space better than any agent out there.

• A business advisor that never sleeps: With Sidekick Pulse, you’ll receive personalized, high-impact advice you can act on. Sidekick researches your store and surfaces actionable suggestions that can make meaningful improvements instantly. Brilliant insights, zero caffeine required.
• An app builder that runs on conversation: Create custom apps for the Shopify admin by prompting Sidekick. Bespoke software made for your business—using just words. 
• You can now talk to your theme: Customize any store element through natural language commands like “make this button rounded.” Sidekick understands and modifies the appropriate settings instantly, whether it's global styles or settings on individual blocks. You can now click on anything in the theme editor and ask Sidekick to make the edit for you. 
• Collective genius in your pocket: Save, reuse, and share your best Sidekick prompts with your team or with a community of other merchants using Sidekick Skills. You can add skills to Sidekick's repository for quick access, creating shortcuts for repeat tasks.
• A flow builder that just gets it: Use Flow to create automated workflows by simply describing what you want to accomplish. Say, “Help me automatically tag customers if they place an order over $200.” Sidekick then builds and visualizes the entire flow for you, no coding required.
• Photo wizardry without the design degree: Transform product photos with pro-level AI editing tools, built into your file editor for studio-quality results.

“Sidekick has been a massive game changer when it comes to marketing, product demand, inventory planning, and just maximizing my time,” says Mordechai Hoffmann, co-founder of Blurrd Goods. “It used to take hours upon hours to do research, and now I just put it into Sidekick and it spits out answers in a minute.” 

Together, these updates transform Sidekick into a true business partner—one that’s conversational, thinks ahead, and takes initiative, giving merchants back their most precious resource: time.

AI where it matters most

While Sidekick takes center stage, AI functionality is thoughtfully integrated throughout the Shopify platform, showing up in some of our other exciting updates.

Your products in agentic conversations

Shopify Agentic Storefronts puts your products directly into AI conversations on platforms like ChatGPT, Perplexity, and Microsoft Copilot. One setup in your admin and your products are immediately discoverable by many agents. No complex integrations, no separate apps for each platform—just your products showing up exactly when and where customers need them.

Customers buy without leaving their conversations, and you decide where and how your brand shows up. Your checkout experience, your customer relationships. Toggle which platforms display your products and watch attribution data flow directly into your admin. Commerce is happening in conversations—Shopify Agentic Storefronts ensures you're part of them.

Ship big with high confidence

SimGym (now available in AI Research Preview) works like a flight simulator for your online store, letting you get early signals with AI shoppers before real customers see them. Try on your business decisions and bold changes minus the real-world consequences. Shopify's access to billions of transactions enables us to build realistic AI personas using aggregated shopping patterns. 

Meet your store's crystal ball. Run a simulation with different themes to see projected outcomes based on your store's actual data. Smaller businesses gain insights they'd never access otherwise, while larger merchants leverage their existing traffic patterns for risk-free testing. Ship with confidence, regardless of your store's size or scale. This is how experimentation evolves when AI is at the center: it’s faster, smarter, and now available to every merchant.

Anxiety-free launches

Rollouts brings experimentation directly to your workflow. No more external tools or risky guesswork required. With Rollouts, you can now schedule ahead of time, test, and ship storefront changes all within your Admin, turning gut feelings into data-driven decisions. 

Beyond flexibility and control, Rollouts gives you powerful insights to improve conversion and drive revenue growth, right in the Admin.

One-click catalog expansion

Shopify Product Network is your gateway to instant category expansion. Offer your customers millions of complementary products from across the Shopify ecosystem with zero storage costs or shipping hassles. Think search dead ends or niche needs: when customers search for something you don't stock, smart recommendations keep them discovering and buying instead of bouncing. That's the network effect in action.

You're in complete control: Choose where recommendations appear across five key surfaces like search, collections, and post-checkout pages. And omit competitors or categories that throw off the harmony. 

Meet customer demand with products that are relevant to your product catalog—and the moment. Think: products you don’t stock showing up in search and personalized recommendations at checkout to turn “we don't have that” into “we've got exactly what you need.” Improve customer experience and earn a commission on every sale—all without adding a single item to your warehouse.

Your physical store, elevated

Hardware harmony at last: POS Hub connects your essential checkout hardware to iOS or Android tablets with reliable wired connections. Wired or wireless, now you have a choice. Card readers, printers, scanners, and cash drawers all link seamlessly to Shopify POS. 

POS Hub keeps data flowing between your hardware and point of sale and supports multiple simultaneous connections. And it’s reliable by design: built-in monitoring and automatic updates prevent costly disruptions.

AI creativity in the palm of your hand

Lastly, we’re launching the Tinker app in early 2026, consolidating premium AI tools into one affordable mobile platform. This pocket-sized tool solves the “blank canvas problem” faced by creators, makers, and entrepreneurs by making it easier to produce professional visuals, even if you have no design experience.

Tinker lowers the cost of accessing cutting-edge AI tools. It's designed to make the journey from idea to final design as frictionless as possible, democratizing access to professional-quality design.

Tools for the modern age

Where Renaissance era masters wielded paintbrushes and chisels, today's builders and creators have access to tools those artists could have never imagined. This represents a transformative moment for commerce. By making powerful tech more accessible and intuitive, we're empowering a new generation of entrepreneurs.

Our Winter '26 Edition is available now. Explore all 150+ features and reimagine what's possible as you craft your own masterpiece.