We tested Shopify Sidekick to see what it can do

Shopify Sidekick sounds impressive in theory, but what is it actually capable of? We put it through a number of real tasks on a Shopify store to see where it helps save time and where it falls short.

Sidekick is becoming core to how merchants run their stores. In Q2 2026, it powered 34M conversations, with daily active users up 3.6x year-over-year, according to Shopify’s Investor presentation.

Keep reading to learn our hands-on Shopify Sidekick findings on admin tasks, data analysis, and more.

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What is Shopify Sidekick?

Shopify Sidekick is an AI-powered commerce assistant designed to understand how Shopify works and provide personalized support for various tasks. It acts as a conversational assistant that you can use to navigate the Shopify Admin, analyze data, or generate visual or written content.

Unlike other AI tools, Sidekick is trained specifically for Shopify. It’s available in 20 languages, and you can use it on desktop, tablet, or through the mobile app. However, it’s not currently available through the mobile browser.

Sidekick capabilities

Sidekick can provide you with Shopify guides, automatically perform admin actions like product creation, generate content, analyze data, and more. Here are the main actions it can do:

You can turn on memory for Sidekick to remember your conversations if you want to review them later. You can also ask Sidekick to save prompts that you’d like to use regularly.

What are Sidekick’s strengths and weaknesses?

Sidekick can save time by guiding you through features, executing tasks for you, or giving you valuable insights, making it a valuable addition for any Shopify business. However, it still needs accuracy checks and doesn’t work outside of Shopify.

Pros

• Executes admin tasks directly – it can make changes directly in Shopify Admin or the theme editor for your approval, so you save hours of your time.
• Data-driven insights – it can explain analytics in simple language that you can then act on.
• Proactive answers – oftentimes, Sidekick doesn’t just answer the questions. It also lets you know what other steps you should take and offers to guide you through them.
• Saves time – Sidekick can take you to the relevant feature or tool without you having to spend time looking for it manually.
• Human approval before changes – Sidekick can’t make changes without your approval. You have to save the changes yourself for it to go live, so you can double-check for mistakes or make necessary edits.
• Accessibility – Sidekick is free for all Shopify merchants using the paid plans. It works in 20 languages and can be used through desktop or the mobile app.

Cons

• Can make mistakes – like every AI-powered tool, it can still provide inaccurate details or misunderstand your prompt. It was visible in our tests when it couldn’t add the feature image it generated, and users on Reddit have also reported occasional mistakes, like outdated instructions.
• Can’t be used outside Shopify – Sidekick doesn’t work with ad platforms or other external tools. It’s made to help the merchant with building and optimizing their store.
• Can’t do customer support – you won’t be able to use Sidekick as an AI customer support agent.
• No competitor analysis – Sidekick can’t natively perform a competitor analysis because it only has access to your own store’s data.
• Can’t perform bulk optimizations – it can’t edit SEO metadata at scale, automatically generate multiple file names or alt texts, or compress large batches of images simultaneously, as TinySEO can.

How much does Sidekick cost?

Sidekick is included for free with all Shopify plans, including Basic, Grow, Advanced, and Shopify Plus, but Shopify states that its features and usage limits differ by plan. For example, custom app generation is reserved for Grow, Advanced, and Plus users, and there are hourly and weekly limits that apply to this feature.

Testing Sidekick’s capabilities

We tested Sidekick on our test store, which we created to replicate a small Shopify business. We used the Dawn theme and created 10 orders.

We accessed Sidekick straight from the Home section of Shopify Admin, but it’s also available through the Sidekick icon at the upper-right corner of Shopify Admin.

Weekly summary report test

Prompt: “Give me a summary of my store's sales this week and its performance.”

When asking for a weekly report, Sidekick gave a detailed answer, providing us with a sales table that shows total sales, orders, and average order value.

When we counted the same data manually, we found that all fields were accurate, and Sidekick used all 10 order data points.

Then, it also gave us a traffic report, showing the number of sessions, visitors, pageviews, and bounce rates. Since we were the only visitors entering the test store, both the session count and bounce rates were accurate.

We liked the fact that it broke down the traffic data based on the weekdays. The conversion rates stayed at 0% because we added the orders manually through the Shopify Admin.

Lastly, Sidekick gave us a list of key takeaways, giving proactive advice on the next steps, like setting up a marketing campaign or reviewing SEO to get more traffic.

Theme editing test

To make theme edits, you can open the Shopify theme editor and click on any element you want to customize. You’ll see an “Ask for changes” button with the Sidekick logo. Here are the prompts we tested and how Sidekick handled the requests:

Sidekick made it easy for us to implement simple changes that could already be done through the theme editor, but it eliminated the need to search for where to customize them.

However, the changes that couldn’t be done through the theme editor and needed coding were not completed. For example, on the Dawn theme, Sidekick couldn’t remove the “Powered by Shopify” element. Still, it offered to guide us on how to edit the theme code to do it ourselves.

Content generation test

At first, we gave Sidekick a simple prompt, like “Create an SEO-friendly blog post: How to choose the right laptop for work in 2026?” However, the content was very basic, so we gave a more comprehensive prompt to see if it follows the guidelines.

Prompt: Write an article titled "How to Choose the Right Laptop for Work in 2026." Open with a 100-word introduction that hooks the reader and previews the article. Add an H2 section called "Things to consider," and under it, cover each laptop-choosing criterion (like processor, RAM, battery life, storage, price, and operating system) as its own H3 subheading with a focused explanation of why it matters and what to look for. Keep every paragraph to 50 words or fewer, splitting longer thoughts into multiple short paragraphs.

After reviewing the content, we found that the content was generated according to the prompt. It also added the title tag and meta description, even if the meta description exceeded the recommended character count.

We also gave a follow-up prompt, asking to “Generate a feature image for this article.” It produced a realistic image of a laptop, asking if it should be applied to the article.

The only issue was that the file didn’t upload as expected, even though an alt text was created. We found that downloading the generated image and uploading it manually resolved the issue.

Does Sidekick work with Shopify apps?

Sidekick has already integrated with many Shopify apps, allowing you to instantly get insights into your SEO, campaign, loyalty, and other types of performance. Here are the apps that we found already work with Sidekick based on different categories:

It’s important to note that Sidekick’s capabilities depend on the level of integration with each app. It can answer questions, retrieve information, and complete certain tasks on your behalf after you approve the app connection. It’s helpful when you have all-in-one apps that offer a wide range of features that can be hard to find.

Still, you won’t get full control over every feature and some actions may not be supported.

How to use Sidekick to grow your business

Sidekick has many capabilities, so it can be used consistently to run and grow your business. Here’s how you can use it to analyze and optimize your Shopify store:

• Step 1: Run a weekly report – start by requesting a summary of your store’s performance so you know where you’re starting. Save the data and the prompt so you can repeat the process every week.
• Step 2: Ask for insights – if you see that there’s something off with your data, ask Sidekick to explain it. For example, try "Why did my traffic go down?" and it will analyze the data and offer proactive insights into what's driving the change.
• Step 3: Request changes – once you start optimizing your store, request admin changes from Sidekick to make things go faster. If you’re making difficult theme edits, ask Sidekick to guide you.
• Step 4: Draft content – create a detailed content brief, whether it’s for a product description or a blog post, and ask Sidekick to write it. You can then edit the draft and check the content accuracy, which saves time compared to writing from scratch.
• Step 5: Automate repetitive tasks – you can use Sidekick to automate your business processes through Shopify Flow. For example, you can create workflows to automatically give discounts to loyal customers or get alerts about product returns.
• Step 6: Run a report again – after you optimize your pages, run the weekly report after 7 days to compare how it changed.

Final thoughts: Is using Sidekick worth it?

Shopify Sidekick is a useful tool for new Shopify merchants who want to save time while learning how to use the platform. It’s also great for store owners who have to do repetitive admin tasks every day and want to automate the process.

Sidekick automates some website setup, design, content creation, and other areas to help you focus on product development, marketing efforts, and growing your business.

However, keep in mind that Sidekick is only an assistant – it can’t come up with a unique strategy for your business. It also can’t bulk optimize or boost SEO, like TinySEO, choose products to launch or branding, or develop marketing strategies, which still require your creativity and judgment for long-term success.

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About the author

Kristina Jaruseviciute

Kristina is a Content Lead at TinySEO responsible for informing and educating readers on all things Shopify-related. She covers a broad range of topics around SEO, AI visibility, website performance, and conversion rates to help merchants stand out in a competitive landscape.