Shopify President Harley Finkelstein highlighted during the company’s second-quarter earnings call that AI search is enhancing, not replacing, traditional search. The company attributed its strong financial results, including a 36% revenue increase to $3.6 billion, in part to AI-driven traffic and orders, which tripled year-over-year. Finkelstein emphasized that AI search is particularly beneficial for smaller merchants, which comprise the majority of Shopify’s customer base. The e-commerce platform noted that AI search is not taking traffic away from traditional search, which remains one of its largest sources of buyer traffic. 'Search remains one of our largest sources of buyer traffic to our merchants, and it’s still growing,' Finkelstein said. 'Traditional search sessions are up 1.3x over the past two years, holding roughly a third of all storefront sessions.'

AI search works by making multiple calls into Shopify’s catalog, using richer structured data to match products with buyers’ specific intent rather than just keywords. 'While search engines rank by popularity against a handful of keywords, AI agents make multiple calls into Shopify’s catalog, working with richer structured data to match products with the buyer’s specific intent, rather than just keywords,' Finkelstein explained. He provided an example, saying that when a buyer asks for the best car seat that fits three across a sedan, traditional search focuses on the keyword 'car seat,' while AI understands the actual need, dimensions, vehicle type, and quantity. This leads to better conversions for merchants. 'Buyers’ shopping journeys are being compressed as half of all AI-referred sessions are landing directly on a product description page. That is 2.5 times more than what we see with traditional search,' Finkelstein added.

Shopify also noted that 75% of AI-attributed purchases in Q2 occurred outside the top 100 categories, which the company called its 'sweet spot.' The company suggested it could benefit further as AI plays a larger role in transactions due to its trusted checkout experience. Shopify is also integrating AI tools and agents, having built connectors to Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Manus, Replit, and Vercel, as well as vibe-coding platforms like Lovable that allow merchants to build on Shopify however they choose.

Source: techcrunch