Shopify is presenting AI search as a growth engine for online stores, not as a threat to the search traffic merchants already rely on. On its second-quarter earnings call, the e-commerce software maker said AI-driven visits and orders to Shopify stores had tripled year-over-year in the second quarter.
The company tied that trend, at least partly, to a strong quarter in which revenue rose 36% to $3.6 billion from a year earlier, above Wall Street’s forecast of $3.4 billion. Gross operating profit rose 31% to $1.71 billion, also ahead of analysts’ expectations of $1.63 billion.
Why Shopify Sees AI Search As Additive
Shopify President Harley Finkelstein told analysts that AI has become a “complement to search, rather than a substitute for it.” That distinction matters because the company is not describing AI assistants as simply shifting existing discovery away from Google-style search. Instead, Shopify says AI is adding another path for buyers to reach merchants.
Traditional search remains important inside Shopify’s view of buyer behavior. Finkelstein said, “In fact, search remains one of our largest sources of buyer traffic to our merchants, and it’s still growing.” He added that “Traditional search sessions are up 1.3x over the past two years, holding roughly a third of all storefront sessions.”
That means Shopify is arguing for a both-and model. Buyers still use traditional search in large numbers, while AI referrals are growing quickly enough to become commercially meaningful. For merchants, the key point is not that one channel has disappeared. It is that product discovery is spreading across more kinds of interfaces.
How AI Agents Change Product Discovery
Shopify’s explanation centers on intent. A conventional search engine often starts with a small set of keywords and ranks results by popularity. AI agents, by contrast, can work through a more detailed request and compare products against several requirements at once.
Finkelstein described it this way: “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.”
He gave the example of a buyer looking for the best car seat that fits three across a sedan. In that case, a keyword search may emphasize “car seat.” An AI agent can consider the actual constraint: the need for three seats, the dimensions, and the vehicle type. The result, in Shopify’s framing, is a product match based on whether the item solves the buyer’s problem, not only whether it ranks highly for a term.
This is why AI search may be especially useful in e-commerce. Shopping questions often include fit, compatibility, use case, budget, taste, and constraints that do not reduce cleanly to one keyword. If AI can interpret those constraints and connect them to structured product data, merchants with the right item may have a better chance of being found.
Compressed Shopping Journeys Could Help Conversions
Shopify also said AI referrals are changing where shoppers land. According to Finkelstein, “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.”
That detail helps explain why Shopify links AI search to stronger performance. A shopper who lands directly on a product description page may already be further along in the decision process. The AI assistant has done part of the sorting work before the buyer reaches the storefront.
For merchants, that could mean fewer steps between discovery and evaluation. Instead of arriving on a broad category page or a general storefront, the buyer may begin with a product that already matches a specific need. Shopify says that improved matching is leading to better conversions for merchants.
The company also said 75% of AI-attributed purchases in Q2 happened outside the top 100 categories. Shopify called that area its “sweet spot.” The implication is important for smaller merchants and less obvious product categories: AI search may surface products that traditional popularity-based ranking would not always push to the front.
A Different Outcome From Online Publishing
Shopify’s experience contrasts with what has happened in online publishing, where AI summaries have produced a measurable drop in click-through rates. Lower click-through rates can reduce site traffic, which can then pressure advertising revenue.
E-commerce is different because the value of a visit is tied to whether a buyer finds and purchases the right product. If AI assistants send shoppers directly to relevant product pages, the merchant may benefit even if the discovery process begins outside the store. Shopify is arguing that AI search is not absorbing the transaction. It is sending better-qualified shoppers toward merchants.
That difference explains why the same broad AI trend can create opposite business effects. For publishers, AI summaries can answer a user’s question without a click. For Shopify merchants, AI agents can narrow a product search and still need to hand the buyer off to a product page and checkout flow.
Shopify Is Building For AI-Driven Commerce
Shopify also pointed to its trusted checkout experience as a possible advantage if AI plays a larger role in transactions. If buyers increasingly move from AI recommendations to purchase decisions, the checkout layer becomes part of the value chain.
The company said it has built connectors to Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Manus, Replit and Vercel. It also mentioned vibe-coding platforms like Lovable, which let merchants build on Shopify however they choose.
The broader message is clear: Shopify wants its catalog, merchant tools, and checkout to be accessible wherever buyers and builders are using AI. The company’s second-quarter comments suggest it already sees measurable benefits from that shift, while still depending heavily on traditional search as a major and growing source of storefront traffic.