Shopify Sidekick and Magic: What Shopify's Built-In AI Does

Shopify Magic vs Sidekick: what the names mean now

Shopify introduced "Shopify Magic" as the umbrella name for its AI features and later added Sidekick as a chat assistant. In Shopify's current AI-powered tools help page, the old Magic URL now leads to a page that describes two things:

• Sidekick, an AI assistant you chat with from any admin page. It also powers the "generate text" icon on product, blog, page and email editors.
• AI features built into specific workflows, such as suggested replies in Shopify Inbox, background colour replacement in the file editor, a suggested product category, and a generated starter theme.

Shopify also offers Tinker, a separate free mobile app with more than 100 AI tools for product images, videos and brand assets, and lets you connect third-party AI tools such as ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini to your store with controlled access.

What Sidekick can do for a small store

From Shopify's Sidekick documentation, as of October 2026:

Sidekick works on desktop, in the Shopify app on phones and tablets, and by voice, but not in a mobile web browser. It uses the page you are on as context, so asking about sales while on Analytics gives better answers.

Shopify's documentation also lists clear limits: Sidekick cannot talk to your customers, cannot see other merchants' data, cannot edit images inside your theme or product list, and cannot change your store without your approval. Generated text in forms is highlighted in purple so you can see what was added.

Writing product descriptions with Sidekick

This is the feature most small stores use first. Shopify's product description help page says generation works in all languages Shopify supports, and recommends at minimum a product title and two features or keywords.

1. 1

   Open the product and give real details

   Add the product type, materials, size, who it is for and your brand words. A vague name with no type gives generic copy.

2. 2

   Ask for a length and tone

   For example: "60 words, friendly, mention it is handmade in Singapore and dishwasher safe". Shopify's best-practice page recommends stating the format up front.

3. 3

   Check every fact against the product

   AI can add plausible features you never mentioned, such as "waterproof" or "organic". Delete anything you cannot stand behind.

4. 4

   Remove claims that need proof

   Health, safety, origin and environmental claims must be true and supportable. A generated "eco-friendly" is your claim once published.

5. 5

   Save, then read it on the live page

   Published products show the new description straight away. Check it on a phone as customers will see it.

Images, file editor and Tinker

In the file editor, Shopify's media generation can replace a background with a solid colour or transparency, or generate a new scene from a short prompt. Shopify says this is available on all plans at no extra cost "for a limited time". Generated images default to about 1 megapixel and carry an invisible watermark that does not restrict commercial use.

Sidekick can also generate images in chat. Image generation has a monthly limit and a short-term limit, both depending on your plan and shared by everyone in the store. Nothing generated is added to your store until you click save.

For the rules on what AI image edits are acceptable, such as changing the background but never the product, see our guide to AI product photos for online stores.

Limits, plans and your data

Sidekick is included in the Shopify admin rather than sold as a separate subscription. What varies is how much you can generate:

• Image generation: a monthly limit that resets each calendar month and a short-term limit, both set by your plan.
• App generation: an hourly and a weekly rolling limit, measured by how much work Sidekick does. Staff need the App development permission.
• Plan-specific actions: some tasks depend on plan and permissions; Shopify's example is that deposits on draft orders are only available on Shopify Plus.

For reference, Shopify's Singapore plans were S$29 a month for Basic, S$99 for Grow and S$399 for Advanced on yearly billing, per Shopify's pricing page (approximate, as of October 2026).

On data, Shopify states on its Sidekick article that Sidekick has the same permissions as the logged-in staff member, and that store data is never used to train foundation models or shared with other merchants. Sidekick also keeps memory of past conversations and recent activity, which you can manage in its settings.

Where Sidekick helps and where to be careful

In short, Sidekick is useful for a small store owner who does everything alone, as long as every customer-facing change gets a human read before it goes live. Shopify's own best practices page says the same: give clear instructions, add context, and review changes before applying them.

Do it yourself or get help?

Sidekick needs no set-up: open the admin and start asking. The time saving depends on how good your product data is. A store with consistent titles, product types, variants and costs gets much better answers than one with half-filled fields.

If you are starting out, our Shopify store setup checklist for Singapore covers the product data, payments and policies to get right first. If you want the store built with clean product data from the start, our Shopify Store package (S$1,890) covers set-up, theme, product upload and payments. We review AI-drafted copy and images before anything goes live.