Shopify’s Universal Cart Makes AI the New Storefront – PYMNTS.com
Shopify has launched three tools to make it easier for developers to embed the eCommerce functionality to whatever they are building, such as an app or chatbot.
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The new offerings are Shopify catalog, universal cart and checkout kit. These tools will let developers tap artificial intelligence (AI)-powered commerce without a lot of extra code or having to manage compliance.
“Agents will become a common way people shop,” Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke said in a post on X. “We’re making that as easy as possible for the AI age.”
The move expands Shopify’s reach, since more people are shopping using AI chatbots. This makes discovery of merchant products through traditional search more challenging. By making it easy for developers to add Shopify to whatever they’re building, Shopify’s merchants can be found even if people don’t use traditional search.
The Shopify catalog lets agents search product listings from millions of merchants, showing their inventory in real time and with local pricing, according to Aaron Glazer, Shopify’s director of product, in a YouTube video. It categorizes products of the same SKU under a universal product ID to reduce duplicates and find more relevant products.
The catalog includes visual components that can display things like product bundles, subscriptions and different size or color options. Developers can customize these components to match the look and feel of their apps or chatbots. The agent also continuously interacts with the shopper with each click or chat, and suggests next steps.
Shopify is also using MCP UI, which tells an AI agent how to show products on screen visually with things like images, buttons and product details, not just plain text. This makes the shopping experience feel more like a real online store, even though the product discovery is occurring inside a chatbot.
The new universal cart lets shoppers check out products from multiple Shopify merchants in one place, even across sessions or conversations. The third tool, checkout kit, embeds Shopify’s checkout directly into the chatbot. The shopper doesn’t have to leave the experience.
“With these, you can build seamless embedded commerce experiences quickly, starting with all the best products by the best merchants in the world instead of having to sign them all up individually,” Lütke said. “No need to build a complex new checkout, or dealing with regulatory marketplace rules. Commerce just plugs in and feels seamless in conversations.”
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