- AI-First Discovery: Shopify’s Catalog API delivers rich product previews and universal IDs for clean, relevant search results within AI assistants.
- Persistent Cross-Merchant Cart: Universal Cart maintains a single shopping cart across sessions and stores, simplifying multi-merchant purchases.
- Integrated Secure Checkout: Checkout Kit embeds Shopify’s branded, compliant payment flow directly into conversational interfaces.
- Developer Simplicity: Token-based authentication and built-in compliance let developers add full commerce features with minimal coding.
- Conversational Reach: Merchants gain visibility in emerging AI shopping channels, ensuring their offerings surface when agents recommend products.
A deep dive into the APIs that let agents guide discovery, build carts, and finalize transactions seamlessly.
When shoppers converse with an AI assistant—be it in a chat window, a voice app, or a virtual storefront—they expect more than text-based suggestions. They want the full e-commerce experience: instant discovery, intuitive product selection, and a frictionless checkout.
Recognizing this shift, Shopify has unveiled its Catalog API, which powers product searches across millions of merchants in real time. By grouping identical items under universal product identifiers, the Catalog avoids overwhelming shoppers with near-duplicate listings. Instead, agents receive rich previews—complete with high-quality images, variant options, pricing details, and visual components like bundles or subscriptions—directly within the conversational interface.
As Shopify CEO Tobias Lütke put it:
“Agents will become a common way people shop. We’re making that as easy as possible for the AI age.”
Seamless Multi-Merchant Shopping via Universal Cart
Once a shopper has found the right items, the Universal Cart takes over, unifying products from multiple stores under one persistent cart. Whether a user adds items in a single session or across multiple conversations, the cart remains up-to-date.
Each addition triggers an API call that returns a web component showing the current cart state—complete with subtotals and checkout links. This approach eliminates the need for separate carts per merchant and preserves shopping context, ensuring a smooth transition from browsing to purchase without forcing users to leave the AI environment.
Embedded Secure Checkout with Checkout Kit
Checkout no longer requires a detour to an external site. With Checkout Kit, developers can embed Shopify’s full-featured, compliant payment flow directly into their AI interfaces. By invoking a simple tool call, an agent renders the merchant’s branded checkout experience—handling taxes, shipping options, and regulatory requirements like GDPR and PCI DSS v4—inside a secure iframe or custom component.
Merchants keep all their existing business rules and UI customizations, while shoppers benefit from a familiar, reliable checkout that never feels tacked on.
Developer-Centric Integration and Compliance
Shopify’s new tools emphasize ease of integration and built-in compliance. Each API call is authenticated with a private bearer token, and Shopify handles marketplace rules and payment regulations behind the scenes.
This means developers can focus on crafting engaging conversational experiences rather than building complex payment logic or privacy frameworks. Whether in a standalone chatbot, a voice skill, or an AR shopping app, embedding Shopify commerce becomes as straightforward as importing web components and wiring a few endpoints.
Expanding Merchant Reach in Conversational Commerce
As AI assistants become primary shopping companions, merchants must ensure their products are discoverable within these new channels. By joining the Shopify catalog, retailers gain visibility in any agent-powered environment that integrates these APIs.
This approach complements traditional search and social-media strategies, opening doors to entirely new touchpoints where consumers ask, “Hey agent, find me…” rather than typing keywords. In Lütke’s words, “Commerce just plugs in and feels seamless in conversations.”
