Shopify Sidekick and Cuped.ai: How AI is changing the way merchants grow

If you’ve been anywhere near the Shopify ecosystem lately, you’ve probably heard the buzz about Shopify Sidekick.

It’s one of those features that makes you go: “Oh, wow… this could actually change how I run my store.”

And it’s not just hype. AI tools like Shopify’s Sidekick are a sign of a bigger shift in ecommerce. They’re helping merchants make smarter, faster decisions without extra clicks or digging through help docs.

While Sidekick is great at planning and guidance, it doesn’t actually go in and execute your optimization ideas for you. That’s where other tools like Cuped.ai come in.

First let’s talk about Sidekick itself and what makes it a great addition to your toolset.

What is Shopify Sidekick?

Shopify Sidekick is essentially your AI assistant inside Shopify.

Instead of Googling “how to add a discount banner to my homepage,” you can just ask Sidekick and get a direct answer, or even a suggested action without leaving your dashboard.

Here are some things Sidekick can do today:

• Explain how to set up and manage Shopify features and settings.
• Suggest ways to improve your store’s pages, campaigns, and promotions.
• Help you setup reports using ShopifyQL.
• Help you understand your analytics.
• Draft copy for product descriptions or marketing emails.
• Answer “how-to” questions instantly without making you search for the answer.

If you’re running your store solo or with a small team, Sidekick is like having a knowledgeable Shopify staff member on call 24/7 without the payroll cost. More importantly, no need to wait in a queue to speak to a Shopify support agent.

Why Sidekick is a big deal

AI tools aren’t new. But what makes Sidekick important is where it lives: inside your Shopify admin.

This means your assistant is built into the same place you manage products, orders, and customers.

That convenience matters.

Instead of switching tabs, finding an article, and trying to apply what you read, you can just… ask.

The other big win is for new merchants. Shopify has a lot of features, and it can be overwhelming when you’re starting out. Sidekick lowers the barrier by making the learning curve less steep.

Where Sidekick tags in Cuped.ai

For all its benefits, Sidekick is still an assistant.

It’s not there to:

• Run live experiments on your store.
• Automatically deploy new code.
• Track and analyze the results of changes over time.

In other words, Sidekick can help you investigate and think, but when it comes to actually implementing and testing changes that can grow your revenue, you’re still doing the heavy lifting yourself.

Sidekick helps you plan. Cuped.ai helps you do.

Enter Cuped.ai: Your AI CRO engine

This is where Cuped.ai comes in.

If Sidekick is like having a helpful in-store associate, Cuped.ai is like hiring a full-time conversion rate optimization (CRO) team, but one that works instantly and never sleeps.

Cuped.ai is built specifically for Shopify stores.

Our whole mission is to help merchants continuously improve their store’s performance through A/B testing and data-driven changes without needing to know anything about coding, CRO frameworks, or statistical analysis.

How Cuped.ai is similar to Shopify Sidekick

• AI-driven assistance: Both use AI to help you make smarter decisions faster.
• Merchant enablement: Both aim to level the playing field so small and medium-sized merchants can run like larger teams.
• Shopify integration: Both live in the Shopify ecosystem, which means less friction and faster workflows.

Where Cuped.ai is different

Here’s where Cuped.ai stands apart:

1. Automation First
   Sidekick gives you ideas and instructions. Cuped.ai doesn’t just suggest. It creates and deploys your ideas and experiments automatically. You pick an idea, and Cuped.ai handles the technical setup, the code injection, and the test execution.
2. Deep CRO Focus
   We’re not a general assistant. Every feature we’ve built is designed to improve your store’s conversion rates and revenue. That’s it. We live and breathe CRO.
3. Data-Driven Ideation
   Cuped.ai looks at your store data, including product pages, carts, code, and customer behavior, to generate test ideas tailored to your store.
   (Note: Our GA4 + Shopify data fusion is currently being built and will be available soon, giving you even deeper insight into your performance and opportunities.)
4. Full Lifecycle Support
   We don’t just give you a to-do list. Cuped.ai handles the whole process:
5. • Identify customer gaps.
   • Generate ideas based on data.
   • Let you choose the ones you like.
   • Automate design and code.
   • Deploy them instantly.
   • Track results in real time.
   • Tell you the winners so you can make them permanent.
5. Zero Developer Time
   No dev sprints. No Jira tickets. No waiting weeks for someone to implement your changes. You can test a new headline, layout, or checkout tweak today and have results in days, not months.
6. Vibe CRO
   With the new Vibe CRO feature, you can vibe your way to optimizing your store. If your familiar with vibe coding, well think of Vibe CRO as something similar but specifically for all stages and activities related to conversion rate optimization.

A quick scenario: Sidekick vs. Cuped.ai

Let’s imagine you want to improve your product page.

With Shopify Sidekick:

You ask, “How can I increase conversions on my product page?”

Sidekick gives you three suggestions. Maybe adding more lifestyle photos, tweaking your product description, and adjusting your CTA button color.

You thank Sidekick… and then realize you still need to:

• Write the new copy.
• Find and upload new photos.
• Edit your theme to change the CTA button color.
• Track whether any of this actually works.

With Cuped.ai:

You click Analyze my store.

Cuped.ai identifies customer pain points and gaps across your product page and gives you an easily ingestible list of opportunities.

Once you select an opportunity to focus on, Cuped.ai suggests a few test ideas such as a new headline variation, a different photo order, and a more prominent CTA button. The difference here is that the ideas and opportunities are tailored specifically to your page design and code. No general recommendations.

You select the opportunity → You select the test idea → You review the automatically generated design (and code snippet) → Cuped.ai launches it instantly on your store → results start rolling in.

No coding. No manual setup. No “did this even work?” guesswork.

Why many merchants will use both

The truth is, it’s not Sidekick vs. Cuped.ai.

It’s more like:

• Sidekick is your generalist AI assistant.
• Cuped.ai is your specialist CRO execution engine.

Sidekick can answer your “how do I…” questions across the board.

Cuped.ai is laser-focused on one thing: making your store convert better, automatically.

The bigger picture: AI as your growth team

AI in ecommerce is moving from “cool idea” to “critical advantage” quickly.

A few years ago, you needed:

• A marketing strategist to brainstorm test ideas.
• A developer to code them.
• An analyst to track results.
• A project manager to keep it all moving.

Now? AI can do the work of that entire team.

And the earlier you start using it, the more compounding gains you can get over time.

That’s the future we’re building at Cuped.ai.

Not just helping you think of better ideas, but making sure those ideas are live, tested, and optimized while you sleep.

Wrapping up

Shopify Sidekick is a huge step forward for merchants.

It puts AI right where you need it in your Shopify admin, and gives you instant answers and guidance without the friction of searching or guessing.

Cuped.ai builds on that same vision but focuses entirely on conversion rate optimization, automating the full A/B testing cycle so you can continuously improve without lifting a finger.

In the future, many merchants will run both:

• Sidekick for quick help and general guidance.
• Cuped.ai for automated, hands-on CRO execution.

If you’re ready to see what that kind of automation looks like, test out Cuped.ai’s free trial.

You can learn more and start running your first AI-powered tests right here: Cuped.ai for Shopify.