If you’ve been running a Shopify store for any length of time, you’ve probably seen the words ‘Magic’ and ‘Sidekick’ show up somewhere in your dashboard. And if you’re like most product brand owners, you either clicked on them once, got confused, and moved on — or you’ve never clicked on them at all.
That’s understandable. The Shopify platform throws a lot of features at you at once, and when you’re also managing inventory, orders, and marketing, it’s easy to park the unfamiliar stuff in the ‘I’ll figure that out later’ pile.
But here’s the thing: these AI tools are already inside your store. They’re part of what you’re already paying for. And according to Shopify strategist Deonnah Carolus — who has spent a decade building and scaling hundreds of e-commerce stores — most Shopify stores are running at about 30% of what they could be doing, largely because these tools are being ignored.
What Shopify Magic Actually Does
Shopify Magic is the AI tool most people picture when they think about AI on the platform. It handles the content creation side of your store — specifically, product descriptions and product imagery.
On the image side, Magic lets you upload a photo taken on your phone and replace or enhance the background to make it look more professional. If you don’t have product photos at all, you can prompt it to generate images. It’s not going to replace a professional product shoot for your hero images, but for catalog work or secondary images, it’s a legitimate time-saver.
On the copy side, Magic can generate a starting-point product description from your inputs. The key word is starting point. If you open Magic, type in a few details about your product, and expect publish-ready copy, you’re going to be disappointed. But if you use it as a first draft that you then refine using a more robust AI tool — one you’ve trained on your brand voice — you’ll get output that actually sounds like you.
What Shopify Sidekick Can Do That Most People Don’t Realize
Sidekick is where things get more interesting for store growth. While Magic focuses on content creation, Sidekick is your in-store AI assistant — and it can see everything inside your store.
That means you can ask it questions like: Who are my top customers and where do they come from? What’s my conversion rate this quarter compared to last? How do I increase my average order value by 10%?
Sidekick won’t just answer those questions with a number. It will give you a plan. A strategy. A starting point for action.
It can also help you build and edit your store pages, especially if you want a feature your current theme doesn’t support out of the box. Think of it like having a junior developer and a business analyst available on demand — for free, inside your dashboard.
To find it, look for the small face icon in the top right corner of your Shopify admin. It looks like a little ninja. Click it. Start talking to it like you’d talk to an assistant who happens to know everything about your store.
Why Your AI Output Sounds Generic (And the Fix)
This is the most common frustration product brand owners have with AI tools: the output sounds like it came from a machine, not a human, and definitely not from their brand.
The reason is almost always a data problem, not a technology problem. You asked a tool that knows nothing about you to write like you. Of course it defaulted to generic.
The fix is to build what Deonnah calls a brand brain inside your preferred AI tool. That means uploading your brand guide, writing samples, ideal customer profile, product details, and tone guidelines so the AI has something real to work from. When you give it context, the output changes completely.
Tools like Claude allow you to create persistent projects with uploaded assets so every new conversation already knows your brand. Once that foundation is in place, you can bring the resulting copy back into Shopify Magic or use it directly on your product pages.
What AI-Powered Shopping Means for Your Product Brand
The conversation is shifting beyond what’s inside your Shopify dashboard. AI agents are increasingly being used to complete purchases on behalf of consumers, surfacing products, and comparing options. Sometimes they are completing transactions before the buyer even lands on your website.
What this means is that the way your products are described, tagged, and cataloged online matters more than ever. Your product data feed, your descriptions, your tags, and your digital footprint — every place your brand shows up online — are what give AI search tools the information they need to surface your products.
Deonnah compares it to the early days of Google: you didn’t fear Google indexing your products. You optimized for it. The same mindset applies here….build your presence, clean up your data, and show up consistently wherever your products are sold or mentioned online.
Where to Start If You’re New to Shopify or Feeling Behind
If you’re not yet on Shopify, or you’ve been meaning to migrate from Squarespace or another platform, start by just getting on it. Shopify’s Basic Plan is enough to get started. It supports most sellers through the early five-figure range. You don’t need a paid theme — the free Horizon theme is solid. You don’t need Shopify Plus unless you have a complex wholesale operation with split invoicing needs.
The first goal is simply to get your products on the platform and get set up with payments and shipping. From there, you can explore the AI tools, optimize your product pages, and start asking Sidekick questions about your data.
If you want a step-by-step walkthrough, Deonnah’s Shopify Lab program covers everything from setup through theme customization, payments, and shipping integration. It’s designed specifically for DIY store owners who want to learn the platform without hiring an agency.
For a full breakdown of how these tools work together and what Deonnah looks for when she audits a new store, listen to the full conversation on the She Sells Differently podcast. Find it wherever you listen to podcasts.
Andee Hart is an award-winning sales executive who walked away from traditional success to reinvent how product-based businesses grow. After nearly 20 years in corporate America, she turned a kitchen-counter candle experiment into Hart Design Co, a wholesale brand carried by hundreds of boutiques across North America. That experience became the foundation for She Sells Differently, where Andee is teaching emerging product brand owners to redefine what it means to sell by serving with excellence, growing with strategic purpose, and shining as a light in the marketplace.
