OTTAWA — The president of Shopify Inc. says consumers are entering an era where artificial intelligence has even more control over purchases. Harley Finkelstein said Tuesday that the e-commerce software company’s most recent quarter marked the first time Shopify saw shoppers experimenting with “delegated purchasing” — when AI-based agents don’t just recommend products, they buy them on a customer’s behalf. “This is really the newest front door into commerce,” he told analysts on a call. “This is very new behaviour. Volume is, of course, small, but it’s growing.” Delegated purchasing is valuable for Shopify because it puts products from merchants using its software in front of an even broader audience. Because AI agents know a person’s shopping preferences and history, it also makes it easier for consumers to unearth merchandise they would never have discovered on their own and then buy it. This phenomenon builds on a wave of new opportunities the company has been trying to harness as consumers get more comfortable with using AI chatbots for browsing and now, buying products. “Commerce is fragmenting. AI is not just creating new ways for buyers to shop, it is also creating new ways for merchants to operate and that is what Shopify was built for,” Finkelstein argued. Shopify recently started helping its merchants make hundreds of millions of their products be instantly discoverable through ChatGPT. It also began integrating Shop Pay — its checkout technology — into “an avalanche” of new AI tools Muse, Claude Duet, Grok Bot and Instinct. “This doesn’t just give our current merchants optionality. It is also becoming an onramp for new merchants,” Finkelstein said. “Imagine an aspiring entrepreneur talking to ChatGPT or Claude or Muse about starting a retail business. The agents suggest they start building with Shopify, and then it helps them build their store inside the chat.” Finkelstein’s insights into how AI is shaping commerce came as his company’s share price dropped almost 10 per cent to $197.07 when the market opened. John Shao, an analyst with TD Cowen, said in a note to investors that “we don’t see anything obvious to explain the significant” stock decline. “In our view, elevated investor expectations heading into Q3 left no margin for error, and Shopify is therefore being punished for delivering largely in-line results,” he wrote. Hours before the fall, Shopify reported US$462 million in third-quarter net income, up from US$264 million in the same quarter last year. The company, which keeps its books in U.S. dollars, said the profit amounted to 36 cents US per diluted share for the quarter ended Sept. 30 compared with a profit of 20 cents US per diluted share a year earlier. On an adjusted basis, its profit amounted to 49 cents US per diluted share in its latest quarter, up from an adjusted profit of 34 cents US per diluted share in the third quarter of 2025. Revenue for the quarter totalled US$3.74 billion, up from US$2.84 billion in the same quarter last year. The results included US$836 million in subscription solutions revenue, up from US$699 million a year ago, while merchant solutions revenue totalled US$2.91 billion, up from US$2.15 billion in the same quarter last year. In its outlook for its fourth quarter, Shopify said it expects revenue to grow at a low-thirties percentage rate on a year-over-year basis. --- Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 3, 2026.
