AI now an 'expectation' at Shopify, will factor into performance reviews, hiring: CEO

Shopify CEO Tobias Lutke participates in the company's Annual General Meeting of Shareholders in Ottawa on Wednesday, May 29, 2019. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin Tang

Shopify Inc. is doubling down on artificial intelligence with new policies that will make the technology a “fundamental expectation” for all staff because it will be embedded into everything from performance reviews to product development.

A memo released by CEO Tobi Lütke urged the Ottawa-based e-commerce software company’s staff not already treating AI like a critic, tutor, programmer or deep researcher to use the technology.

“Frankly, 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,” Lütke wrote in a memo he posted to X on Monday because he heard it was being leaked.

“Stagnation is almost certain, and stagnation is slow-motion failure. If you’re not climbing, you’re sliding.”

The more than 1,100-word memo solidifies AI’s place at Canada’s most prominent tech company but also sets a new standard for how deep AI could penetrate corporate Canada.

Lütke’s vision will see AI figure into every nook and cranny of his company and even wind its way into how staff pursue projects.

In Shopify’s current approach to product development, each project begins with a prototype phase, where ideas are tested before being built and released.

Lütke’s memo said he wants AI to be used at that earliest stage because “AI dramatically accelerates this process.”

“You can learn to produce something that other team mates can look at, use, and reason about in a fraction of the time it used to take,” he wrote.

AI will also crop up in staff performance and peer review questionnaires because he said his “sense is that a lot of people give up after writing a prompt and not getting the ideal thing back immediately.”

He said teams wanting more resources and the ability to hire must also demonstrate why they cannot get what they want done with AI before they will be given permission to carry out their plans.

The priorities Lütke outlined will apply to everyone from executives like himself to the company’s most junior ranks because he wants to “totally change Shopify, our work, and the rest of our lives.”

The memo reminded Chris MacDonald, who teaches ethics at the Ted Rogers School of Management at Toronto Metropolitan University, of the Silicon Valley motto, “move fast and break things.”

It probably wasn’t a jarring note for a tech-savvy workforce like Shopify’s to receive, but he said anyone making moves like Lütke’s has to “make sure they’re not just leaping into a new technology without being pretty sure that the benefits are going to be substantial and that they’re going to outweigh the risks.”

Asked about the guardrails Shopify will rely on to ensure anything AI generates is accurate and not inserting biases or errors into work, Shopify spokesperson Jackie Warren did not respond. She also did not reply to questions about what sparked Lütke’s memo and what will happen to workers who don’t use AI.

MacDonald saw some of Lütke’s changes as a way to boost productivity and ensure staff stay up-to-date on technology but said they conjure up a “black box problem” for the company’s merchants, who operate online stores with Shopify software, and their customers. A black box problem refers to a system whose inner workings are a mystery to many of the people using the tools.

“The consumer may not understand the seller’s use of AI and at some level, even if the seller wants to be transparent about it, they may not fully understand it,” he said.

Shopify’s use of AI has steadily increased in recent years with the company rolling out tools its merchants can use to answer questions or write product descriptions and email subject lines.

Shopify president Harley Finkelstein previously told The Canadian Press he turns to AI to write copy for his Firebelly Tea company, and when someone sends him a long news article he asks the technology to summarize it so he can decide if it’s worth a read later.

Lütke has said he used the technology to create a talk he offered at the company’s last annual summit, where he encouraged more staff to follow his lead and dabble in AI.

“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. It’s just too unlike everything else,” he said in his memo.

“The call to tinker with it was the right one, but it was too much of a suggestion. This is what I want to change here today.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 7, 2025

Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press