Sidekick is the new AI merchant assistant. It’s an e-commerce business owner’s close companion. This colleague will whisper all the necessary business analysis and tips in your ears. It has the power to modify, redesign and create data and content that will set your brand apart.
Many e-commerce platforms have added Artificial Intelligence to their service. Shopify has now also launched its feature. It intends to significantly improve the user’s experience and outcome of business goals.
How does Sidekick work?
Sidekick has the power to modify Shopify merchant shop design, add product collections or make suggestions. Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke calls it “deeply competent”, which knows all the tricks in the book and is committed to making sure merchants are more successful.
According to TechCruch, Sidekick can even answer questions like why the sale of certain products has declined. It can also make some suggestions on which items should go on sale, and at what price. It however only responds to the merchant’s orders and won’t make any autonomous decisions.
Sidekick has all of the latest marketing trends, giving direction and making suggestions when needed. It can come in very handy. It’s almost like having the perfect colleague as a business partner. It can even do basic product research and follow instructions on specific to-do lists.
Why Sidekick was created
“Entrepreneurship is hard. Entrepreneurship is important. And it needs to be easier,” said Lütke in his announcement on social media.
Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke
“Imagine how much more entrepreneurship there would be in the world if everyone would have someone by their side who is deeply competent, totally committed to you. Available around the clock, with no judgment. Technology has advanced so much in the last year that this is now possible.”
Lütke has been at the helm of Shopify for over two decades. His heart is in helping as many entrepreneurs succeed and thrive. “We believe entrepreneurs are heroes. And every hero needs a sidekick.”
One of the best things about Sidekick, as pointed out by Lütke, is that it can help merchants tick things off their to-do-list.
How will Sidekick help startups?
Business entrepreneur and Locate2u’s CEO Steve Orenstien believes Sidekick will give small businesses a huge jump into their success. “Things like having product descriptions and being able to write out those product descriptions. Improving images, removing things. Chatbot is going to be great, where customers are able to come to their website and ask questions. They will be able to learn alot from the historical chat conversations.”
With all the data collected online by Shopify, the e-commerce platform will be able to improve its machine learning even faster. “Shopify has a huge amount of data, and the data will be useful to them. This is what they are going to use to actually train their machine learning engines and AI engines to understand what’s actually taking place,” explained Orenstein.
The data collected on Shopify will also be used when answering merchants questions on Sidekick. “AI is ultimately going to improve the experience of customers. It will make it faster for you to respond to your customers. I think it’s a really exciting time,” said Orenstein.
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About the author
Mia is a multi-award-winning journalist. She has more than 14 years of experience in mainstream media. She's covered many historic moments that happened in Africa and internationally. She has a strong focus on human interest stories, to bring her readers and viewers closer to the topics at hand.
