Shopify winter '26 Ren(ai)ssance Edition

1) Sidekick gets seriously useful. And more proactive.

Sidekick is Shopify’s AI assistant built to help merchants run and improve their stores. It has now moved from simply “answering questions” to spotting opportunities and nudging you with next steps.

What’s new:

• Sidekick Pulse: proactive, personalised recommendations based on your store and market trends.
  
• Theme edits via plain English: inside the theme editor.
  
• Build Shopify Flow automations by describing what you want.
  
• Generate custom apps inside Shopify admin: plan-gated.

Why it matters:

• Less “where do I click?” time.
  
• Faster ops (especially if you’re juggling merch, marketing, customer experience, and reporting with a lean team).
  
• Cleaner experimentation because you can get from idea to change to data faster.
  

Heads-up on availability: generating apps with Sidekick is currently available on Grow, Advanced and Plus.‍

2) Agentic Storefronts: selling inside AI chats

This is Shopify putting your product catalogue directly into AI shopping journeys.

What Shopify is shipping:

• Shopify agentic storefronts let customers buy and check out inside AI channels, including ChatGPT and other AI surfaces.
• You can manage/control channels in admin, and orders show up with channel attribution.
• Shopify also explains product discovery can happen via the Shopify Catalog (and other methods like indexing/feeds).
  

Why it matters:

• This is a new top-of-funnel that doesn’t look like Google/Meta.
  
• Brands with clean product data (titles, options, attributes, metafields) will show up better when shoppers ask AI for recommendations.
  

Heads-up on availability: agentic storefronts are early access and not available to all stores yet.

3) Built-in A/B testing is here with Rollouts & SimGym

Finally. This is one of the most anticipated updates in Winter ’26.

Two separate things to know:

Shopify Rollouts

You can now schedule theme changes and A/B tests with Rollouts, which is built into Shopify admin.

Shopify SimGym

SimGym simulates shopper behaviour with AI agents (Shopify positions this as using data from billions of purchases).

• The app listing calls it AI Research Preview, used to simulate buyer behaviour and see signals like add-to-cart and navigation patterns.

Why it matters:

• Faster CRO cycles, with less guesswork.
• Especially helpful if you don’t have massive traffic (simulations can still give directional insight).

4) Checkout upgrades UK brands should care about

This is where Winter ’26 can translate into revenue quickly.

Shop Pay Installments is now in the UK

• Shopify explicitly calls out Shop Pay Installments in the UK, with terms “up to 24 months” on Editions.
  
• The Help Centre confirms it’s available to eligible UK stores selling in GBP, and outlines eligible order values in GBP.
  

Why it matters: 

“Buy now, pay later” isn’t just a nice-to-have. It can increase conversion and average order value for the right product mix.

Checkout and customer accounts customisation per market

• Set different checkout and account experiences for different markets.
• Heads-up on availability: early access for select stores on Advanced or Plus.

Why it matters:

UK brands selling into the EU/ROW can tailor messaging, promos, and policies per market, without messy workarounds.

Shop Pay upgrades

• Personalised Shop Pay button: shows the last four digits of a customer’s saved card (a small trust/clarity win).
  
• Apple Pay in Shop Pay is now supported.
  
• Shop Pay works with Global-e for international orders processed by Global-e.

5) Catalogue and merchandising upgrades 

These aren’t flashy, but they remove real friction for UK ecommerce teams:

• 2048 variants per product (massive for fashion, custom products, bundles of options).
  
• Unlisted product status: hide products from search/collections while keeping them live via direct URL.
  
• Collections improvements: duplicate collections + exclude products from smart collections using conditional logic.
  
• Unit pricing now available globally (helpful for compliance-heavy categories).
  

6) Operations and analytics: cleaner data, better decisions

A few Winter ’26 ops updates that can genuinely make day-to-day smoother:

• Bot filtering in analytics for cleaner conversion rates.
  
• Heatmaps in analytics (e.g., sales by hour/day) for spotting your best-selling windows.
  
• AI-enhanced chargeback management: auto-generated dispute summaries pulling key factors like tracking + policies.
  
• Flexible inventory transfers (more realistic inventory handling).
  

7) Shipping: Royal Mail labels inside Shopify admin

This is a big UK ops win:

• You can now buy shipping labels directly in admin for Royal Mail in the UK.

Why it matters:

If you ship volume, this is the kind of “small” workflow improvement that saves a lot of time.

8) Developer/Plus teams: Scripts are being replaced by Functions

If you’re on Plus and still relying on legacy Scripts logic:

• Shopify states: “In June 2026, Shopify Functions will replace Scripts.”

Why it matters:

It’s not just technical housekeeping. Discounts, shipping logic, and checkout customisations need to be future-proofed properly.

What we’d do next

If you want the fastest “wins” from Winter ’26:

1. Turn on / explore Sidekick + Pulse and use it to surface quick operational wins.
   
2. Clean up product data (options, attributes, metafields) so you’re ready for AI discovery and agentic storefronts.
   
3. If eligible, test Shop Pay Installments (UK) on products where price sensitivity is real.
   
4. Start treating changes like experiments: use Rollouts and/or SimGym to reduce risk.
   
5. For Plus brands: map any legacy Scripts work and plan the move to Functions before June 2026.
   

How we can help

Our job as your agency is to translate platform changes into measurable growth:

• getting checkout and payments set up properly (UK & international),
  
• improving conversion with structured testing,
  
• and making sure your build won’t break when Shopify moves the goalposts.
  

If you want a clear plan for your store, reach out. We’ll sanity-check your setup, highlight what’s worth doing next, and help you roll out the Winter ’26 updates that will actually drive real results.