Navigating Software Complexity in Ecommerce

Building an ecommerce business is hard – it requires merchants to have a wealth of skills: technical, logistics, marketing, pricing, vendor management, finance and analytics. That’s why Shopify is releasing new AI features that help merchants tackle things like product descriptions, marketing suggestions and search.

Today on No Priors, Glen Coates, the VP of core product at Shopify (and former founder of b2b wholesale platform Handshake), joins Sarah and Elad. They talk about the releases from Shopify Editions, why they are deploying “copilot” rather than “autopilot,” AI innovation-at-scale, how to change the basement of a house while people are living in it, and building a leadership team of entrepreneurs.

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Shopify Editions | AI Section of Shopify Editions

Show Notes: 

(0:00) Background

(2:22) Calling a “Code Red” at Shopify

(4:04) Integrating acquisitions, entrepreneurial leaders

(12:15) AI adoption

(15:51) Deciding when to ship AI products, evaluations

(17:33) Shopify’s risk orientation

(18:50) Changing the core Shopify data model, enabling AI features

(26:05) What’s missing from LLMs for merchants

(28:47) Most interesting AI developments in the industry

(33:22) What users want from LLMs and search

(38:20) No Priors social