It’s common knowledge that AI search tools are changing how people shop online. For Shopify, it’s been a positive change, helping the company grow.
During its second-quarter earnings call, Shopify shared some numbers. AI traffic to its stores has tripled compared to last year. And regular search traffic is still climbing too.
AI and Search
Shopify President Harley Finkelstein explained the trend clearly. He called AI a complement to search, not a replacement for it.
Shopify’s platform is built around smaller vendors who often can’t compete with big brands on conventional search rankings. AI search seems to be leveling that field.
Search traffic isn’t shrinking either. It’s up 1.3 times over the past two years. It still makes up about a third of all visits to Shopify stores. So both channels are growing side by side.
News Publishing
AI search is not good news to everyone. Many publishers have seen fewer clicks because of AI summaries. People read the summary and never visit the actual website.
That hurts ad revenue for news sites. Shopify’s experience looks completely different in comparison.
Shoppers using AI tools still end up clicking through to buy products. The AI doesn’t replace the shopping trip. It just changes how people start it.
Shopify’s Revenue
Shopify’s second quarter revenue jumped 36% to $3.6 billion. That beat what Wall Street analysts expected, which was $3.4 billion.
Profit margins improved; gross operating profit rose 31% to $1.71 billion. Again, that topped analyst forecasts of $1.63 billion.
The company credits at least part of this growth to AI shopping habits.
AI Search
Conventional search engines mostly match keywords. Type in “car seat,” and you get a list ranked by popularity and other SEO metrics.
AI agents work differently; they dig into multiple details at once. Finkelstein used a helpful example on the earnings call. Imagine someone needs a car seat that fits three across in a sedan.
A regular search engine just looks for “car seat” as a keyword. An AI agent understands the full request.
It factors in seat width, vehicle type, and the need for three seats together. Then it searches across all those details at the same time.
That means shoppers get matched with products that truly fit their needs and not just products that rank the highest.
Shopping Journeys
AI search is also changing the shopping journey itself. Half of all AI-referred visits now land directly on a product page. That’s 2.5 times higher than what typical search delivers.
In plain terms, shoppers skip a lot of browsing. They land right where they want to be, shortening the path from searching to buying.
Winning Products
Seventy-five percent of AI-attributed purchases in the second quarter came from outside Shopify’s top 100 product categories.
These are the niche, harder-to-find items that don’t usually dominate search rankings. AI seems especially good at connecting shoppers with these specific, less common products.
This fits with Shopify’s overall business model. The company has always focused on the long tail of e-commerce- small brands, specialty items, and products that big-box stores don’t carry.
To further help smaller vendors, Shopify has built connections with several major AI tools and AI providers.
These include Claude, ChatGPT, Perplexity, Manus, Replit, and Vercel, and vibe-coding platforms like Lovable. These let merchants build their stores in flexible new ways.
