If you’re a human reading this, you know evolution is a double-edged sword.
It's nice our body got an upgrade from the banana posture, at least till we turned 22 and started hunching over phones again. But evolution has also made our attention spans shorter.
The point is: Evolution is a messy mix of sweet and sour.
Thanks to AI, this year’s been a whirlwind of its own. And now it’s coming for how we consume.
Drumroll, please. **Shopify is going all in on an AI-first culture. **
In a leaked memo from April 7, Shopify’s CEO Tobi Lütke urged teams to “hire an AI before you hire a human”, making it clear: the future of the platform is AI-native.
What does that mean in English? Now you can buy Shopify products directly through ChatGPT.
And no, this will not be the usual affiliate link kind of model. This will be a complete inside-the-chat purchase, instead of jumping to external sites. GPT will turn into a full-funnel shopping tool that never lets you escape its cozy little text box.
And naturally, this new frontier is sparking some interesting conversations. As we watch AI and commerce converge, here are a few perspectives to consider: **Are we moving toward an e-commerce feedless future? **
We’ve spent over a decade training our thumbs to scroll.
Explore → Like → Cart → Maybe → Abandon → Panic → Buy.
That was the rhythm, the pulse of discovery.
Now, buying will become almost too easy. Maybe…dangerously easy. Sure, Amazon’s been seeding instant gratification into our subconscious for years. But finding products that make you go, “This is exactly what I need”, with a single prompt? That’s a whole new ballgame.
When the buying experience collapses into a single click... do we still pause to think? The doom scroll, the stumbling on cringe finds… is all that even enjoyable anymore?
What does this mean for brands, you ask? A major shift in priority setting.
Wait…does that mean LLMs will become the next ad platforms?
If people start using ChatGPT to shop, plan, decide, and discover, the prompt becomes the new search bar. And wherever there’s a search bar… You can bet someone’s trying to rank on top of it.
But doesn’t this entire ‘conversation > landing’ experience feel very 2016? Like how we used to have a conversation with the shopkeeper before making a purchase? The only catch is: **The shopkeeper here is AI. **
If the scroll dies, discovery becomes a prompt, conversation replaces catalogue… We might enter an era where buying feels more natural than ever.
However, for brands, that means rethinking how they show up...or if they even get the chance.
Where do you stand on the Shopify + ChatGPT shift? Just another update or the start of something massive?
Let us know in the comments 👇