[Flash Report] Shopify Editions Winter '26 | The Renaissance Edition New Feature Roundup

The second Editions of the year has finally been released.
As always, this Shopify Editions Winter ’26 | The Renaissance Edition features a page with elaborate animations.
The theme of this Editions, "Renaissance," emphasizes "AI," as highlighted on the website, with over 150 updates announced across various areas, including enhanced automation and generation features powered by AI (Sidekick), improved POS and checkout customer experiences, and enriched financial functionalities.
This article will summarize some of the most notable new features.
While some features are not yet publicly available or are only supported in certain regions, we will highlight those that we hope you will try once they become available in Japan.

Table of Contents

1. Significant Evolution of AI Assistant "Sidekick"
2. Shopify Agentic Storefronts Enables Product Purchases from Major AI Chats
3. Revamped Online Store Building and Management Features
4. Evolution of Marketing and Shop App
5. Enhanced Customer Experience and Login Functions
6. Expansion of POS and Physical Store Functions
7. Improved Checkout Experience
8. B2B (Wholesale) Features Go Mainstream
9. Improvements in Operations, Logistics, and Sales Functions
10. Updates for Developers
11. Other Convenient Features
12. Summary

1. Significant Evolution of AI Assistant "Sidekick"

Key New Features

Execution of Multi-Step Tasks

Sidekick can now handle complex task planning and execution, not just single instructions.
For example, it can search for apps. If you type "Do you have an app like this?", it will suggest several options, and you can install them on the spot.

Studio-Quality Image Generation and Editing

Advanced image editing, such as changing backgrounds, adding/deleting elements, and expanding the canvas, can be completed solely through AI commands.
I instructed it to change the background of the first image, which was a sunset, to "a sunny daytime," and it did a good job of changing it.

Insights and Suggestions (Not yet released)

Sidekick Pulse analyzes market trends and store data to provide personalized improvement actions and recommended tasks.
This feature could not be verified as of December 12th, so it is presumed to be unreleased.

Custom App Generation (Glow Plan and above)

You can now generate custom apps that run only in the admin panel by using natural language input, such as "create an app that encourages reordering."
* This feature is only available for Glow plans and above.

Click the + button at the bottom of the SIdekick chat, then click the app generation button.

Workflow Automation

It automatically creates Shopify Flow workflows just by entering a description.
This feature could not be verified as of December 12th, so it is presumed to be unreleased.
*Updated December 17, 2025
Similar to app generation, you can instruct Sidekick to create a workflow, and after creation, you can check the flow and add it directly to your store if there are no issues.

Automated Report Generation

It automatically creates custom analytics reports using ShopifyQL and visualizes the data.

Automated Theme Updates

It automatically adjusts themes and content based on prompts.
When I tried this feature, it successfully changed the store's color and font settings.
However, it is important to note that theme changes after settings must always be saved manually, and there may be cases where visibility decreases, such as "the text remaining black despite setting a black background" as shown in the image.

2. Shopify Agentic Storefronts Enables Product Purchases from Major AI Chats

Shopify Agentic Storefronts, coming soon, will support major AI chats like ChatGPT, Copilot, and Perplexity. When your store's products match user requests, they will appear in the chat. Furthermore, purchases can be made directly from within the chat.
If a purchase is made via ChatGPT, the order will be created as an order from ChatGPT.
The importance of enriching product information and specifications will further increase.

3. Revamped Online Store Building and Management Features

Streamlining Construction and Operation

• Shopify SimGym (Coming Soon): AI agents simulate shopper behavior to identify store issues.
• Rollouts (Coming Soon): In addition to scheduling theme changes, A/B testing functionality is integrated, enabling effective releases.
  It's unclear if this will be implemented as a feature in the admin panel or released as an app, but merchants who previously manually switched themes to coincide with campaign launch dates will definitely want to try this feature when it becomes available.
• Detailed Management in the Theme Editor (Coming Soon): Products, collections, and market settings can be edited directly from the theme editor without returning to the admin panel.
  Many merchants have probably been working with multiple tabs open, such as the customization editor and product management. This feature will free them from a large number of tabs.
• Shopify Integration for WordPress Sites: By installing a dedicated plugin in WordPress, existing WordPress sites can easily be converted to Shopify.

   

• Integration of "Lovable" and Shopify: "Lovable" is an AI code generation tool that allows you to easily build well-designed stores using only natural language prompts.
  Stores built with "Lovable" are not theme-based but are constructed with a headless architecture that separates Shopify's e-commerce functions from the storefront, enabling the creation of lightweight and fast stores.
  The created store can be integrated with Shopify and used immediately by asking an AI agent.

▼ Site actually generated by "Lovable"

4. Evolution of Marketing and Shop App

Expanded Customer Acquisition Features

• Shopify Product Network (US Only): A system appears that automatically displays products from other Shopify brands and earns sales commissions.
• Shop Campaigns Expansion (US Only): Display your company's products in search results of related stores and on post-purchase pages.
• Shopify Messaging & Forms: Shopify Messaging now supports SMS. Additionally, Shopify Forms now supports automatic translation from English to multiple languages (19 languages).

Enhanced Shop App (Mobile)

• Dynamic Storefronts: AI personalizes and displays relevant products for each shopper.
• Deals Feed & Shopping Videos: A dedicated feed for discount information and AI-optimized video distribution are now available.
• Expanded Order Tracking: Tracking functionality is now available in 21 countries, including Germany, France, and Italy.

5. Enhanced Customer Experience and Login Functions

Key Points

• Passkey Login Support for Admin Panel: Secure and seamless access to the store admin panel using fingerprint, facial recognition, and PIN authentication.
• Shop Account / Cross-Store One-Tap Login: Smooth login leveraging existing Shop app authentication.
• Social Login (Google / Facebook, etc.): Customers can now create accounts and log in more easily.
• Customer Email Address Editing: Customers can now change their email address themselves using a one-time passcode, a highly requested feature.

6. POS and Physical Store Function Expansion

Key Updates

• Uber Direct Integration (US, Canada, France Only): Supports same-day delivery with live tracking.
• Support for new barcode scanners and HID-compatible scanners (POS Hub is the only hub with processing power that supports iPad, providing wired connection stability).
• POS can now accept subscriptions.
• Update inventory on the spot from POS inventory count and scan operations (Quick Count feature *POS Pro only).

7. Improved Checkout Experience

Key Improvements

• Last 4 digits of saved card displayed on Shop button: The last 4 digits of a saved card are displayed on the Shop Pay button, visually indicating existing payment methods to the customer and shortening the purchase path.
• Market-specific Checkout Customization: You can now set up accounts and checkouts for countries and B2B customers from the checkout editor.

8. B2B (Wholesale) Features Go Mainstream

Increased Flexibility in B2B Transactions

• Shopify Collective Expansion: Now supports 35 countries, enabling direct B2B transactions with other brands from the admin panel.
• ERP Integration: Pre-built integrations with major ERPs like NetSuite, BrightPearl, and Fulfil reduce implementation hurdles.

9. Improvements in Operations, Logistics, and Sales Functions

Operations and Analytics

• Heatmap Analysis: Visualize sales data by time and day of the week to identify peak times.
• Apple Watch Widget: Key KPIs can now be viewed on the Apple Watch. This is good news for busy merchants.
• Shopify Flow Update: Preview workflow results and cancel workflow execution are now possible.
• AI-Powered Chargeback Management: Automatically generates summaries of dispute claims, including important elements like delivery tracking and store policies.

10. Updates for Developers

Key Points

• Shopify Catalog for All: A MCP tool and REST API capable of searching billions of products are now available.
• Checkout Kit for Web: A JS library allows implementation of the checkout experience on browsers (websites).
• Shopify Functions Expansion: Promotes migration from Scripts to Functions, improving execution performance and compatibility.

11. Other Convenient Features

• Hidden Product Status: Accessible only via direct URL, not shown in search or collections.
• Combined Bundles (Admin API): Allows selling multiple attributes combined into one.

Summary

The biggest theme of this edition is undoubtedly AI integration and automation (Sidekick).
It has evolved into an "AI that performs practical tasks," from image generation to app operations.
We will also continue to pay attention to features that support the diversification of sales channels in the future, such as Shopify Agentic Storefronts and Shopify Product Network, although these are not yet available in Japan.
In addition, various other features have been added.
If you are interested or want to know more, please visit the official page (Japanese version).
Commerce Media will continue to test Shopify's new features and update them as needed.