Shopify is expanding its artificial intelligence (AI) strategy through a new partnership designed to make product search and recommendations faster and more relevant.
The ecommerce provider announced it is teaming up with Liquid AI. Liquid is a startup developing AI models built with speed and low resource needs in mind. The multi-year agreement, unveiled Nov. 13, brings Liquid’s AI technology to Shopify’s merchant network, powering core tasks such as search and personalized recommendations across online storefronts.
In early testing, an AI recommendation system co-developed by the partners led to higher conversion rates than Shopify’s previous model, they said. The companies are also exploring potential applications for AI agents — automated assistants that could handle parts of the shopping process — but did not provide further details.
Shopify is one of the most widely used ecommerce platforms among major retailers. Currently, 118 of the Top 2000 online retailers in North America use Shopify as their ecommerce platform, according to Digital Commerce 360 data. In 2024, the combined web sales of all Top 2000 retailers that used Shopify’s ecommerce platform reached $10.496 billion. The Top 2000 Database ranks North America’s largest online retailers based on their annual ecommerce sales and more.
Deal details and early performance results
Under the new agreement, Shopify will license Liquid AI’s foundation models, which are designed for accuracy-sensitive, low-latency tasks. The companies did not disclose financial terms.
The deal also formalizes a co-development effort already underway and includes a shared roadmap and ongoing research collaboration, the companies said.
Shopify was an investor in Liquid AI’s $250 million Series A round in December 2024, led by AMD with participation from OSS Capital and Duke Capital Partners.
“We’re excited to bring Liquid Foundation Models to millions of shoppers and merchants and to show how efficient ML [machine learning] translates into measurable value in everyday experiences,” said Ramin Hasani, CEO at Liquid AI, in a statement.
Search model goes live, with more features to follow
As of Nov. 13, Shopify’s first Liquid AI-powered model is now live, supporting search across its merchant storefronts. These range from small boutiques to large brands such as Glossier and Allbirds.
Liquid AI reports that the text-based AI model returns results in under 20 milliseconds. In some cases, a version with 50% fewer parameters outperformed larger systems — including Alibaba’s Qwen and Google’s Gemma — while running two to 10 times faster, Shopify chief technology officer Mikhail Parakhin said in the announcement.
Additionally, Liquid AI chief technology officer Mathias Lechner noted that the company’s models are built to maximize quality and speed. This makes them a natural fit for ecommerce tasks, he said, citing examples such as personalized ranking, retrieval-augmented generation and session-aware recommendations.
Recommender system shows early gains
In addition to search, the companies co-developed a generative recommender system using Liquid AI’s proprietary HSTU architecture.
In controlled testing, the system outperformed Shopify’s previous recommendation stack, driving higher conversion rates, the partners said.
“Recommendation is the backbone of decision‑making in finance, health care and ecommerce,” Hasani said. “To be useful in the real world, models must be reliable, efficient and fast. Shopify has been an ideal partner to validate that at scale.”
Looking ahead, Shopify and Liquid AI are now evaluating multimodal models for future use cases. According to the companies, these include customer-profile optimization, product classification and potential AI agents.
In particular, AI agents are becoming one of the most closely watched applications. Industry researchers say agentic commerce is accelerating as AI systems gain the ability to help shoppers compare products, surface deals or even execute purchases automatically. A recent Kearney study found that six in 10 U.S. consumers expect to use an AI shopping agent within the next year.
Shopify expands its broader AI and agentic commerce strategy
The partnership supports Shopify’s larger AI vision, which executives discussed during the company’s Q3 2025 earnings call.
President Harley Finkelstein told analysts that AI is shifting consumer behavior from “search to conversation,” changing how shoppers discover and buy products.
A part of that strategy is Shopify’s Commerce for Agents toolkit, he said. The suite includes Catalog, Universal Cart and Checkout Kit. The tools allow third-party agents to pull product data, build carts and initiate checkout without requiring shoppers to visit a storefront.
In September, Shopify partnered with OpenAI to support “Instant Checkout.” That feature lets users buy products directly through ChatGPT conversations. At the time, OpenAI said merchants including Glossier, SKIMS, Spanx and Vuori would soon gain access to the feature.
Shopify said consumer behavior is already reflecting that shift. Since January, AI-driven traffic to its stores has risen sevenfold, while orders tied to AI-powered searches are up by 1,100%, Finkelstein said. Ahead of Black Friday–Cyber Monday, a Shopify survey also found that about 64% of shoppers expect to use AI at some point in their holiday buying, he said.
“What we’re really trying to do is lay the rails for agentic commerce,” Finkelstein said. “Now, in terms of how that’s going to affect Shopify, that’s the beauty of the business model. The business model is perfectly aligned with merchant success. The more money they make, the more money we make.”
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