Shopify has been steadily expanding its AI capabilities, but the newest updates to Shopify Magic and Shopify Sidekick take things to a whole new level. These tools are now smart enough to generate on-brand product descriptions, rewrite entire sections of your storefront, and even assist with lightweight image editing—all directly inside the Shopify admin.
We recently integrated these AI features into our own storefront workflow, replacing placeholder content and smoothing out design inconsistencies. Here’s a breakdown of what the experience was like and how much time it actually saved us.
Why Shopify’s New AI Tools Matter
For years, building a polished storefront meant juggling multiple tools—copywriting apps, image editors, spreadsheets, external design teams, and a content calendar. Shopify Magic and Sidekick aim to collapse a lot of that into the platform itself:
Shopify Magic: AI that writes, rewrites, summarizes, and enhances content across your store (product descriptions, landing pages, email copy, etc.).
Shopify Sidekick: A conversational assistant built directly into Shopify’s admin that can make edits, configure settings, create draft content, and help troubleshoot.
Think of Magic as the creative engine and Sidekick as the AI assistant whispering, “Hey, want me to do that for you?”
Replacing Lorem Ipsum With Real Content—Instantly
Our first use case came when we were still early in the design phase. Several sections of the storefront were filled with filler text—lorem ipsum paragraphs occupying hero banners, feature cards, and product landing pages.
Instead of manually writing copy for every block, we simply selected the placeholder text and invoked Shopify Magic.
What we got:
On-brand, readable content that matched the tone we specified
Instant variations (professional, playful, short, detailed)
Copy structured with headings, bullets, and calls-to-action when appropriate
Content aligned with the product categories we were actually selling
In a matter of minutes, entire pages transformed from empty scaffolding into something that looked and felt like a real storefront.
The biggest value:
Magic doesn’t just write content—it writes context-aware content. Because it runs inside Shopify, it inherently “knows” your products, collections, and audience better than a generic AI tool.
Smart Image Editing Without Leaving Shopify
We also tested Magic’s new AI-powered image editing features—useful when you need quick visual tweaks without a full design cycle in Photoshop or Figma.
For several images that didn't quite fit our visual direction, we used Magic to:
Remove distracting background elements
Adjust lighting and overall aesthetic
Reframe images to match our layout requirements
Harmonize product photos with the rest of the theme
These weren’t dramatic transformations—they were subtle but meaningful improvements that made the storefront feel cohesive.
What stood out: the edits were fast, non-destructive, and required no exporting or re-uploading. For a busy content pipeline, that’s huge.
Sidekick as a True Partner in Store Management
Beyond writing copy and editing visuals, Shopify Sidekick has become surprisingly effective at streamlining day-to-day tasks. During development, we used it for:
Generating wording variations for banners
Drafting FAQ responses based on product knowledge
Rewriting meta descriptions for SEO
Asking for quick “How do I…” questions without digging through docs
Making administrative changes through simple prompts (create collections, adjust settings, etc.)
Sidekick doesn’t replace developers—but it absolutely accelerates the parts of the job that slow builds down: rewriting, formatting, ideation, and admin tasks.
The Real Impact: Faster Content Cycles
After integrating Shopify Magic and Sidekick into our workflow, the difference was noticeable:
We replaced placeholder text across the site in under an hour
Images were cleaned up and visually aligned without external tools
Content edits became iterative and frictionless
We could generate product reports in Shopify itself within minutes
Instead of treating content as the last step in a build, AI made it easy to develop polished pages from day one.
Who Should Use These Features?
If you’re building or refreshing a Shopify store, these AI tools are especially valuable if:
You struggle with writing consistent, on-brand copy
You need faster content creation during development cycles
You want to reduce reliance on external editors or apps
You’re building multiple storefronts and want scalable content production
You want to empower clients to edit and generate their own content post-handoff
For agencies, freelancers, and busy merchants, Shopify Magic and Sidekick are productivity multipliers.
Final Thoughts
Shopify’s new AI capabilities are not flashy gimmicks—they’re genuinely practical tools that meaningfully cut down on the time it takes to get a store from “concept” to “ready to launch.”
By letting us instantly replace lorem ipsum text, refine images, and iterate on content with almost no friction, Magic and Sidekick have already earned a place in our standard development toolkit.
If you haven’t tried them yet, now is the perfect time. The productivity gains alone make them worth exploring—and as Shopify continues to iterate, this is only the beginning of AI-powered commerce.