Unlocking Agentic Commerce on Shopify: A comprehensive guide
By Mariana Jolles
Updated at 12 Feb. 2026
Shopify is entering its Agentic Commerce era. Finally. Early access is live, and a wider rollout is expected for the end of February.
The term sounds big — but the real question is: what does this change for Shopify merchants, and how can you position your store to benefit before everyone else catches up?
The launch centers around two key components:
Shopify Catalog
The Shopify Catalog is the foundation for agentic commerce. It contains products from merchants all across the Shopify platform and is what allows you to sell directly in AI chats with built-in tools that syndicate your products to every AI platform.
Your products will be discoverable right in ChatGPT, Copilot, and Perplexity (with other channels coming soon) allowing millions of users to shop them via AI chats.
Storefront MCP server
The Storefront MCP server is what allows you to connect your own AI agent to a specific Shopify store's catalog, shopping cart, and policies. It helps customers browse and buy with their selected merchant, as opposed to browsing through multiple stores at once.
So how do you turn Agentic Commerce into an advantage?
By understanding how Shopify’s Catalog infrastructure works — and making sure your store is structured to be AI-ready. The brands that get this right will be the ones surfacing directly inside the AI conversations happening at massive scale.
How does Shopify catalog work?
At its core, the Shopify Catalog transforms your product data into an AI-ready structure.
That means users can search, filter, and evaluate products — and AI systems can dynamically surface the most relevant options across merchants based on intent, pricing, and location.
Search results presented to users will include:
- Product details (title, description, images)
- Available options (think size, color, etc)
- Price range across all offers
- Images
- A list of shops selling the product with their specific prices and checkout URLs
By default, your products are included with core data points — title, description, variants, images, pricing, availability, and key attributes — all structured in a format AI agents can easily interpret. The Shopify Catalog continuously syncs this information, keeping inventory and pricing accurate across every AI-enabled channel.
Once a user discovers your product, Shopify’s agentic storefront layer enables checkout directly within AI environments — including ChatGPT, Google AI Mode, Gemini, and Microsoft Copilot.
That said, there’s an important tradeoff to understand: the checkout experience inside AI channels may not offer the same level of customization or brand control as your native storefront.
How can I enable agentic storefronts on Shopify?
Although Shopify’s agentic storefronts are currently in early access, they’re expected to become active by default across stores by the end of February 2026.
Once activated, customers can complete their purchase natively within the AI conversation — no redirects, no friction, no breaking the flow. Merchants will retain control — you can manage which AI channels enable direct checkout directly from your Shopify admin under the Agentic Storefronts settings.
From an operational standpoint, nothing changes in terms of ownership. You retain full control of the customer relationship, post-purchase communication, and lifecycle marketing — just as you would with orders placed on your online store. Orders are clearly attributed inside Shopify admin, so you’ll know exactly which AI channel drove the sale.
If you choose to opt out of direct selling on specific AI channels, your products can still be surfaced in responses and discovery experiences. The difference is in the checkout layer: instead of transacting natively within the AI interface, customers will be redirected to your storefront to complete their purchase.
How can I prepare my store for agentic storefronts?
With the widespread release of agentic storefronts right around the corner, prepping your Shopify store is key to leveraging its advantages.
To optimize your results, you will need to verify that all product details are accurate, particularly if you are using a custom setup as well as taking eligibility requirements and limitations into consideration.
To guide you through this, we’ve put together a comprehensive list of action items to prepare your store:
Step 1 - Make sure you comply with the eligibility requirements for selling on agentic storefronts
Step 2 - Review the requirements for your products to be listed in the Shopify Catalog
Step 3 - Understand which features are supported and which are not
This is a very important step if you’ve made customizations to your checkout, or if subscriptions & bundles are a key part of your offerings.
Step 4 - Make sure you understand data and privacy policies for selling with agentic storefronts
Step 5 - Once available, opt in to direct selling on agentic storefronts from your admin
Step 6 - Set up your shopify catalog product mapping
The Shopify Catalog Mapping feature lets you fine-tune how Shopify understands your product data, so your products are more accurately represented on agentic storefronts. This is a must for stores with custom data and grouping logic for their products, such as metafields, metaobjects, tag prefixes, or separators or delimiters in product titles.
Step 7 - Review product details to optimize your results for AI platforms
And now what?
When a user engages with an AI assistant and asks for recommendations — whether it’s something broad or specific like “navy running shorts” — the AI will interpret intent and search across eligible Shopify stores to surface relevant products.
Discovery becomes conversational. Instead of navigating menus and filters, users describe what they’re looking for — and AI curates options dynamically based on structured product data, pricing, availability, and context.
Behind the scenes, Shopify’s Catalog standardizes your product information into an AI-ready format. Core attributes — titles, descriptions, variants, images, pricing, availability, and metadata — are continuously synced to ensure accuracy across AI-enabled channels.
From there, the checkout experience depends on your setup:
- If your agentic storefront is enabled, customers can complete their purchase directly within the AI interface. Shipping and payment details are entered natively in the conversation flow, and the order is processed without redirecting to your website. Orders appear in Shopify admin with clear channel attribution, and you retain full ownership of the customer relationship.
- If your agentic storefront is not enabled, your products can still be discovered in AI responses. The difference is in the transaction layer — customers will be redirected to your online store to finalize checkout.
The infrastructure is built to make conversational buying seamless. The strategic question isn’t whether AI will surface your products — it’s whether you’re structured to convert when it does.
Commerce is moving into the conversation layer. It’s not a matter of if — it’s a matter of whether your store is ready.