Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke has issued a memo saying that teams should show why they cannot get things done using AI before requesting for more headcount or resources.
“What would this area look like if autonomous AI agents were already part of the team? This question can lead to really fun discussions and projects,” Lutke says in the memo he sent out last month, and also posted on X on Monday.
— tobi lutke (@tobi) April 7, 2025
The memo states that “reflexive AI usage” was now a “baseline expectation at the company.” Lutke also said that AI has been “the most rapid shift to how work is done that I’ve seen in my career” and that “using AI well is a skill that needs to be carefully learned by… using it a lot.”
According to Lutke, using AI effectively is now a fundamental expectation of everyone at Shopify. The CEO also said that AI usage questions would be added into performance and peer review questionnaires.
“What we need to succeed is our collective sum total skill and ambition at applying our craft, multiplied by AI, for the benefit of our merchants,” Lutke added.
READ: AI and the workforce: Augmentation, adaptation, and the future of jobs (February 11, 2025)
Shopify seems to be going all in on AI. Earlier this year, the e-commerce brand acquired Vantage Discovery, a startup that builds AI-powered search technology for retailers.
According to Vantage Discovery Co-Founder Lance Riedel said via Linkedin that the AI company has joined Shopify to “supercharge e-commerce with the most intelligent product search and discovery capabilities on the planet.”
This came amid an AI-acquisition streak for the company which had acquired six different AI companies over the past year, and brought in AI and machine learning veteran Mikhail Parakhin as CTO, as well as several other notable hires, including Nicolas Grasset, the co-founder and CEO of Peel, and Rousseau Kazi, the co-founder and CEO of Threads.