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Best practices for using AI-powered tools

With AI-powered tools from Shopify, such as Sidekick, you can use everyday language to help complete tasks for the building and running of your store. To get valuable results, use the following best practices when you work with AI-powered tools:

  • Give clear instructions.
  • Set the tone and format.
  • Add context about your store.
  • Refine results as you go.
  • Review suggested changes before you apply them.

These AI tools work within the context of your store and present changes for your review, so you stay in control of what actually gets applied.

Because these tools use AI, the same request won't always produce the same result. Review what the tools generate before you approve any changes to your store, and treat a conversation as a working session that you refine over time rather than a single perfect request. The practices on this page can help you get better results more consistently.

Give clear, specific instructions

The more specific your request is, the more likely the tool is to give you what you want the first time. That means fewer unexpected results to fix, and less back-and-forth than starting with a short request and correcting it over several follow-up messages. When you describe what you need in a request to an AI tool, include the following details:

  • Your goal: State what you're trying to achieve, not just the individual step. For example, Create a collection of my summer products and feature it on my homepage gives the tool more to work with than Make a collection.
  • The data to use: Name the specific products, collections, or orders that the tool should work from, such as using my new arrivals only.
  • Any constraints: Include limits or requirements up front, such as a word count, a budget, or a date range.
  • The outcome you expect: Describe the result that you want, such as the format, length, or level of detail.
  • The scope of the change: For tools that make changes to your store, name exactly what you want changed so that the tool leaves everything else alone, and ask it to check with you before doing anything destructive or hard to undo. For example, Only update the homepage banner.

Set the tone and format

As well as describing what you want, you can shape how the result is displayed. Include instructions in your request to control details such as the tone, length, format, and language of the output. The more specific your request, the closer the result will be to what you want. For example, Include 5 emojis is more precise than Include a lot of emojis.

Review the following examples of instructions that you can include in a request:

  • Write a product description in 40 words or less.
  • Create a collection title that's short and catchy.
  • Generate an image of a young family enjoying a healthy breakfast around a kitchen table.
  • Draft a marketing email with a short, scannable layout.
  • Give my homepage headline a bold, playful tone.

The tone of your content is how you communicate the personality of your brand. If you're not sure which tone to use, then experiment with different descriptions to find a good fit for your product and customers. The following are examples of tones you can request:

  • Expert: Professional, using scientific and objective language, and statements of fact.
  • Playful: Fun or quirky language, including humor and slang expressions.
  • Sophisticated: Refined, luxury-oriented language that appeals to a customer's desire for high quality and taste.
  • Persuasive: Passionate and inspiring, using language that appeals to the senses.
  • Supportive: Friendly, approachable, and straightforward language that empathizes with the customer.

You can also describe a custom tone in your request, such as Write in a sarcastic and witty tone.

Add store context

AI-powered tools work within the context of your store, but you get more accurate results when you point the tool at the exact data instead of describing it in general terms. How you do this depends on the tool that you use. For example, when you work with Sidekick, you can:

  • Mention specific resources, such as a product, order, or collection, by entering @ followed by the resource. For example, Create a 15% off discount for @Relaxed Fit T-shirt.
  • Use Target mode to click a component directly in your Shopify admin, such as a button, section, or field, instead of describing it. For example, in Target mode click your hero section, and ask: Redesign this to feature more images, a catchy headline, and two buttons labeled Shop All and Shop Sale.

Refine results through conversation

You don't need to get everything right in a single request. These AI tools keep the context of your conversation, so you can adjust the result with short follow-up messages. For example, after the tool generates something, you can follow up with:

  • Make it shorter.
  • Use a warmer tone.
  • Try that again, but keep the first paragraph.

Refining in steps often works better than rewriting a long request from scratch, and it helps you understand which changes to your wording produce the results you want. Making one change at a time also keeps each step easy to review, and easy to undo if it isn't what you wanted.

Review changes before accepting

AI tools present changes for your review before applying them, so you can decide what to keep. You're responsible for the changes that you accept, so review the results before you approve them, especially for anything that affects what your customers experience or buy.

For example, when Sidekick fills in a field, that field is highlighted so that you can review what was added before you save.

Undo or adjust a change

If a result isn't what you wanted, then you can ask the tool to change it in the same conversation. Because the tool keeps the context of what it just did, you can describe the problem in plain language and ask it to fix or reverse the change, such as the following examples:

  • Undo that last change.
  • That's not what I meant. Go back to how it was before.
  • The heading is wrong now. Can you fix it?

Describing what's wrong, and where, helps the tool understand what to correct.

Get more help

Following these practices helps you get better results, but AI tools are still evolving and can make mistakes. If asking the tool to fix a result doesn't work, or a change affects your ability to sell, then contact Shopify Support.