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CHINA - 2024/10/13: In this photo illustration, a Shopify logo is displayed on the screen of an ...
More iPad. (Photo Illustration by Sheldon Cooper/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images) Last week, an internal memo from Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke was circulated that perfectly crystallizes what many forward-thinking investors have been quietly discussing: AI isn’t just changing the game—it's creating an entirely new playing field with different rules of engagement. "Reflexive AI usage is now a baseline expectation at Shopify," Lütke declared in the memo, setting a clear marker for what he considers essential skills for the company's continued growth and competitive edge.
The memo outlines a significant cultural and operational shift at one of tech's most influential e-commerce companies. Lütke's directive leaves little room for interpretation: learning to use AI effectively is no longer optional at Shopify. "Using AI effectively is now a fundamental expectation of everyone at Shopify," Lütke writes.
"It's a tool of all trades today, and will only grow in importance." In perhaps the most direct assessment of what this means for employees reluctant to embrace AI tools, Lütke states: "I don't think it's feasible to opt out of learning the skill of applying AI in your craft; you are welcome to try, but I want to be honest I cannot see this working out today, and definitely not tomorrow. Stagnation is almost certain, and stagnation is slow-motion failure.
" This stance represents one of the most explicit corporate positions on AI adoption to date, with Lütke effectively telling his team that AI proficiency has become as fundamental as other basic workplace skills. The memo details several concrete changes to Shopify's operations, indicating this isn't merely aspirational guidance but a structural shift in how the company functions: Performance reviews will now include AI usage assessment : "We will add AI usage questions to our performance and peer review questionnaire," Lütke notes, institutionalizing AI adoption as a metric for employee evaluation. Resources and headcount requests must include AI considerations : "Before asking for more Headcount and resources, teams must demonstrate why they cannot get what they want done using AI," writes Lütke, establishing a new hurdle for traditional staffing requests.
Mandatory AI exploration in project development : "AI must be part of your GSD [Get Stuff Done] Prototype phase," the memo instructs, embedding AI in the company's product development methodology. These changes signal that Shopify is not just encouraging AI adoption but actively restructuring its operational framework around AI capabilities, with implications for everything from project timelines to team composition. Lütke's memo frames AI adoption not merely as a technical requirement but as a strategic business imperative directly tied to Shopify's competitive position in enabling entrepreneurship.
"What we have learned so far is that using AI well is a skill that needs to be carefully learned by...
using it a lot," Lütke explains. "And what's even more amazing is that, for the first time, we see the tools become 10X themselves. I've seen many of these people approach implausible tasks, ones we wouldn't even have chosen to tackle before, with reflexive and brilliant usage of AI to get 100X the work done.
" This perspective positions AI as a force multiplier that doesn't just incrementally improve productivity but fundamentally changes what's possible. Lütke connects this directly to merchant success: "Having AI alongside the journey and increasingly doing not just the consultation, but also doing the work for our merchants is a mindblowing step function change here." Shopify's aggressive AI adoption comes at a critical time for the e-commerce platform.
Despite maintaining its position as a leading commerce infrastructure provider, the company faces intensifying competition from Amazon, WooCommerce, BigCommerce, and a host of new specialized e-commerce tools. The memo reflects Shopify's recognition that maintaining its edge requires more than incremental improvements. "Our task here at Shopify is to make our software unquestionably the best canvas on which to develop the best businesses of the future," Lütke writes, framing AI adoption as essential to that mission.
Industry analysts have noted that Shopify's ability to help merchants compete against giants like Amazon depends increasingly on providing sophisticated tools accessible to small and medium-sized businesses. AI potentially democratizes capabilities that were previously available only to enterprises with substantial technical resources. Interestingly, Lütke frames Shopify's AI push within a broader philosophical context he's previously established for the company's culture.
"In my On Leadership memo years ago, I described Shopify as a red queen race based on the Alice in Wonderland story—you have to keep running just to stay still," he writes. "In a company growing 20-40% year over year, you must improve by at least that every year just to re-qualify." This "Red Queen" metaphor from evolutionary biology and Lewis Carroll's work helps explain why Lütke sees AI adoption as existential rather than optional.
In his view, rapid technological change doesn't just create opportunities for greater growth—it establishes a new baseline that companies must meet simply to maintain their current position. The memo reveals that Shopify has been preparing for this transition, having already invested in AI infrastructure across the organization: "You have access to as much of the cutting edge AI tools as possible," Lütke notes. "There is chat.
shopify.io, which we had for years now. Developers have proxy, Copilot, Cursor, Claude code, all pre-tooled and ready to go.
" This indicates that Shopify's AI mandate isn't coming out of nowhere—it's the culmination of substantial prior investment in AI capabilities and tools. The company has evidently been building toward this moment, with Lütke's memo serving as the official announcement that the transition period is over. While the memo itself doesn't detail employee reaction, Lütke's language suggests he anticipates some resistance while appealing to the company's cultural values to navigate it: "This sounds daunting, but given the nature of the tools, this doesn't even sound terribly ambitious to me anymore," he writes.
"It's also exactly the kind of environment that our top performers tell us they want. Learning together, surrounded by people who also are on their own journey of personal growth and working on worthwhile, meaningful, and hard problems is precisely the environment Shopify was created to provide." This framing attempts to position AI adoption not as an external imposition but as consistent with the company's founding ethos and the preferences of its highest performers.
Lütke explicitly ties the mandate to Shopify's core values: "This represents both an opportunity and a requirement, deeply connected to our core values of Be a Constant Learner and Thrive on Change." Shopify's stance on AI may signal a broader shift in how technology companies approach workforce development and structural adaptation to AI. While many companies have encouraged AI adoption or created specialized AI teams, few have taken the step of making AI proficiency mandatory across all roles and explicitly tying it to performance evaluation.
Shopify's approach suggests a belief that AI isn't just another tool but a fundamental shift in how work gets done—one that requires universal adaptation rather than specialized implementation. This positions Shopify as taking a markedly different approach than companies that have focused primarily on how AI might replace jobs. Instead, Lütke's vision positions AI as something that transforms every role rather than eliminating them.
The memo closes with a forward-looking statement that ties Shopify's internal AI transformation to its larger mission: "Our job is to figure out what entrepreneurship looks like in a world where AI is universally available," Lütke writes. "And I intend for us to do the best possible job of that, and to do that I need everyone's help." This frames Shopify's AI push not merely as an internal efficiency play but as intimately connected to the company's core purpose of enabling entrepreneurship.
In Lütke's vision, Shopify's own AI transformation becomes a test case and foundation for how it will help entrepreneurs navigate an AI-transformed business landscape. Shopify's mandate represents one of the boldest corporate positions on AI adoption to date. While many organizations have created AI guidelines or invested in AI capabilities, making AI proficiency an explicit job requirement across all roles signals a fundamental belief that AI competency has become as essential as email or basic computer skills once were.
The approach raises questions about how companies should balance encouraging innovation with respecting diverse working styles and skills. Not addressed in the memo are questions about training resources, accommodation for different learning curves, or how this mandate might affect diversity in hiring and retention. What's clear, however, is that Shopify sees no middle ground on AI adoption.
In Lütke's view, AI competency has already crossed the threshold from competitive advantage to baseline necessity. As he puts it bluntly: "If you're not climbing, you're sliding." As AI continues its rapid evolution, Shopify's approach may provide an instructive case study for how technology companies manage the workforce transition to an AI-augmented future—whether through mandate, incentive, or more gradual cultural change.
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