DotDev 2026: the five updates merchants should have on their radar

DotDev 2026 gave us a look at where Shopify is heading next: smarter merchandising, AI-powered shopping, better analytics and some important changes happening behind the scenes.

We narrowed it down to the five updates merchants should actually have on their radar.

DotDev's biggest takeaways

• Smarter collections: more control over what shoppers see.
• AI shopping: your next customer might find you through AI.
• Better analytics: less digging, faster decisions.
• Shipping and inventory: the backend changes worth watching.
• Customer accounts: what merchants should start preparing for.

1. Collections are getting smarter

Shopify is making collections much more flexible, with variant-level merchandising, multiple collection sources and sub-collections on the horizon.

The opportunity: instead of merchandising an entire product, imagine being able to highlight the exact variant a shopper is most likely to want. More control, better product discovery, fewer workarounds.

Your next move: look at your highest-traffic collections and ask: what would we merchandise differently if Shopify gave us more control?

2. Your future customers are AI

The traditional shopping journey is changing.

• Before: search, store, product, checkout.
• Next: ask, AI recommendation, product, purchase.

Shopify's work on agentic commerce is preparing for a world where AI assistants help shoppers discover and buy products.

The opportunity: your storefront may not always be where product discovery begins. That makes your product data part of your marketing strategy.

Merchant move: keep titles, descriptions, attributes, images, pricing and availability clear and accurate. Give AI the information it needs to understand what you're selling.

Follow agentic commerce on Signal

3. Less analytics, better data

Nobody asked for another dashboard.

Shopify is opening up its analytics infrastructure so apps and developers can build more useful reporting and insights on top of it.

The opportunity: the goal isn't more data. It's getting from "what happened?" to "what should we do next?" faster.

Your next move: look at the reports your team still exports, combines or builds manually. Those are the areas where better analytics could have the biggest impact.

4. Market-driven shipping

Shipping and inventory infrastructure isn't exactly exciting newsletter material. Until something stops working.

Shopify is evolving how shipping and inventory work across markets, including its move toward market-driven shipping.

The opportunity: for merchants selling internationally, these changes could eventually mean more flexible ways to manage shipping, inventory and fulfillment across markets.

Your next move: if you use custom shipping logic or sell across multiple markets, put this one on your developer's radar.

Follow shipping news on Signal

5. Customer accounts are changing

Shopify continues moving away from legacy customer accounts and investing in its newer customer account experience. For merchants with custom account functionality, integrations or older setups, this is worth paying attention to.

The opportunity: a more modern account experience can create a smoother journey for returning customers, while giving Shopify more room to expand what accounts can do.

Your next move: check which customer account version your store currently uses, and whether any custom functionality depends on the legacy experience.

The bigger picture

The biggest takeaway from DotDev wasn't any single feature. It's the direction Shopify is moving.

Product discovery is expanding beyond the storefront. Merchandising is getting smarter. Data is becoming more useful. And the infrastructure behind commerce is becoming more flexible.

You don't need to adopt everything. Just make sure your store is ready for what comes next.

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