Shopify unveiled its Fall 26 Edition (Shopify Editions Fall 26) on October 28, 2026, dubbed “Exponential”: over 150 new Shopify features for Fall 2026. A large part of it is about AI agents, a good part is only available in the United States for now, and several will not be active before Black Friday. Here is our agency breakdown: what is available in France, on which plan, what needs to be done before November 27, and our honest opinion, backed by tests on our own brand, Cabania. Article updated on October 29, 2026.
The official Fall 26 Edition page divides the new features into 11 categories, from agentic to developer. Source: Shopify.
In short
| Announcement | Available in France today? | Plan | Our opinion |
|---|---|---|---|
| Knowledge base for AI agents | Yes | Not specified | To do this week |
| Collections built by variants | Yes, since July | All | Our favorite |
| Rollouts: launches, events, A/B tests | Yes | A/B tests from Grow | Ideal for Black Friday |
| Sidekick: plans approved all at once, tested proposals | Yes, SimGym tests in early access | All | Better, but below a Claude connector |
| Shopify Protect against fraud | Announced as active with Shopify Payments, without a list of countries | Shopify Payments | Good news, to check in your admin |
| Custom checkout fields | Not before the end of Black Friday | All types on Plus, two fields elsewhere | Concerns one of our Plus client brands |
| Shipping managed by market | Gradual rollout since October 1 | All | Switch to prepare |
| Shopping in Google AI Mode and Gemini | No, United States first | - | Prepare your catalog |
| Canvas, the store editor with Sidekick | Early access | Plans with theme customization | Overrated |
Table of Contents
Selling in AI: the knowledge base first
The common thread of the Edition is agentic shopping: your products found, compared and sometimes paid for directly in a conversation with an AI. Part of these announcements remains reserved for the American market for now. Another is available right now, and it is very easy and quick to set up: the knowledge base.
The knowledge base: the simplest task of the Edition
Since October 26, Shopify directly integrates the information sheet that AI agents consult about your brand into the admin. It is located in the sales channels, Agentic section, then Knowledge base. Shopify crawls your published pages and writes "facts": return time, delivery areas and fees, guarantees, frequently asked questions. Each draft links back to the page it came from, and nothing is published until you have published it. Only the facts drawn from the admin, such as your policies or your contact details, are published by default.
The agents then query these facts via your store's MCP protocol, which we detail in our article on the Model Context Protocol. If the sheet remains empty, the agent reconstructs your conditions where it finds them, with the risk of citing an old return time or an outdated delivery rate.
"We are still measuring the impact on visibility in AI with difficulty. But updating your knowledge base from the back office remains very easy and very quick."
Volkier Bentinck, co-founder of Stellar Projects
Three useful clarifications. The base accepts up to 1,000 facts. A password-protected store cannot be analyzed. And the old Knowledge Base app closes on January 15, 2027: check before this date that your facts are indeed in the new admin base.
Shop Pay in personal agents
Buyers can now pay with Shop Pay in Muse (Meta), Claude Duet, Grok Bot and Instinct, by setting a weekly, monthly or overall budget. Shopify does not publish a list of countries for these agents. If you have not yet activated Shop Pay, it is the prerequisite for payment in these agents: we explain why in our Shop Pay guide.
Google AI Mode and Gemini: not yet for France
Shopping without leaving Google Search, Google's AI mode and the Gemini app is the most spectacular announcement. However, direct payment is currently only offered to American buyers, on stores that sell in the United States. Google announced an extension to Canada and Australia, then to the United Kingdom. Nothing is dated for France. Subscriptions, product bundles, customizable products and products reserved for B2B are excluded.
Check eligibility for the Shopify Catalog
A new view indicates if your store is part of the Shopify Catalog, the index that agents consult, and what needs to be corrected otherwise. The conditions: Starter or higher plan, store without a password, account in good standing, products with a title, an image and a price greater than zero. Our guide to agentic commerce places these bricks in the whole.
Sidekick, collections and Canvas: our breakdown
Here is what we retain from these announcements after our first tests, notably on our brand Cabania.
Sidekick: better, but still below a Claude connector
Sidekick now knows how to prepare a plan of several modifications that you validate all at once. Its suggestions take into account the data from compatible apps and a web search, and it can write code to analyze the store's data. With SimGym, in early access, it even tests its showcase proposals on simulated buyers before submitting them to you. These are not real A/B tests on real customers, but a useful filter.
Our opinion: it is better, but Sidekick remains always less effective than a Claude connector connected to the store. For heavy construction, like the redirection plan of a migration, we continue to work with Claude via the Shopify connector. Our guide Shopify Magic and Sidekick details its uses.
Our favorite: collections built by variants
A collection can now group precise variants, and no longer just entire products. It can also combine several sources: automatic conditions, manual selection, exclusions, other collections, apps. The feature arrived in July and the Edition highlights it with creation assisted by Sidekick.
We tested it on Cabania. Our collection white cabin bed directly displays the white version of over a dozen beds, and each sheet already opens on white. Until now, you had to duplicate products or go through an app to get this result. If your apps interact with collections, ask their developers if they have switched to the 2026-07 version of the API.
Canvas: overrated
Canvas displays the entire store on a single screen and allows you to modify it by conversing with Sidekick. Launched on October 1 in early access, it works on computer, with Shopify themes or custom themes, but not with third-party themes from the Theme Store. Above all, a theme modified in Canvas no longer receives updates from its editor, does not yet manage app blocks, and does not allow market customization or translation.
Our opinion: Canvas is overrated. It pushes towards a homogenization, a standardization of a certain Shopify aesthetic. Yet this is precisely what our clients want to avoid when they go through an agency: an experience that does not look like all the other stores. We advise against switching a theme to production in Canvas, especially before Black Friday. Our complete analysis is in our opinion on Shopify Canvas. To choose your base well, see our method for choosing a Shopify theme.
The new theme architecture
On the developer side, Shopify is preparing a new theme format where the page structure lives in Liquid, with AGENTS.md and DESIGN.md files that Sidekick reads before modifying a theme. It is in developer preview, without a general availability date. Nothing to do for now.
Rollouts: your scheduled and tested promos
Rollouts allow you to prepare changes in advance and trigger them together. The same rollout can gather a theme change, a checkout configuration, the activation of price catalogs by market and the activation or deactivation of promo codes. There are three modes.
| Mode | What it does | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Launch | Applies changes to all visitors, permanently | New collection online Monday at 8 am |
| Event | Applies changes over a period, then automatically rolls back | Black Friday theme, prices and codes from November 27 to December 1 |
| Experience | Compares a test version to the existing one on a part of the traffic (50/50 and 90 days by default) | Test a new cart before the holidays |
Experiences require the Grow plan or higher. Shopify also announces the extension of Rollouts to POS, Google Shopping and the Shop app. One point of vigilance: a promotion keeps its own activity dates, check that they match those of the rollout.
Checkout, payments and fraud
Custom checkout fields: not just for Plus
The checkout will welcome custom fields: desired delivery date, birthday, internal order number, choice in a list. Good news: it is not totally reserved for Shopify Plus. Plus gets all types of fields (text, text area, list, date, checkbox), and the other plans have the right to delivery instructions and the gift message. The answers are saved in the order metafields.
Shopify specifies that the feature will not come out before or during Black Friday, so as not to touch checkouts in the middle of the season. One of our client brands on Shopify Plus is directly concerned, as it is also by shipping by market, detailed below.
Payments: what concerns French brands
- Multicurrency payouts: French merchants can receive their Shopify Payments payouts in several currencies, on the Advanced and Plus plans.
- New presentation of payment methods in tiles at checkout, currently rolling out.
- Apple Pay in Chrome, Edge or Firefox, by QR code scanned with an iPhone: announced, not yet available.
- Local payment methods: Satispay, Scalapay, Alipay and WeChat Pay announced in physical store (availability to check depending on the country), MB WAY online for your Portuguese clients.
Shopify Protect: fraud blocked before the order
Historically, Shopify's fraud analysis came after the fact: the order went through, then was flagged as risky. With Shopify Protect, payments almost certainly fraudulent are blocked even before the authorization request, card testing bots are stopped, and AI helps prepare the answers to disputes. Shopify indicates that Protect is active for all stores on Shopify Payments, without publishing a list of countries. The activity report and the application of custom rules (Rule Builder, on waitlist) come next. Check what is really activated in your admin.
Product data and shipping by market
Different product data for each channel
A new page allows you to adapt the data sent to each sales channel without touching the store product sheet: add the brand to the title sent to Google Shopping, choose another image, draw a value from another field. You can force a value for a product on a single channel, modify in bulk and see the fill rate of each field. It serves to improve your Google and Meta feeds, and the quality of the data that AI agents read.
Editing variants directly from the product sheet, with bulk actions, is also announced, without an official date to date.
Shipping is now configured in markets
The shipping profiles you know will leave the place to options configured directly in Shopify Markets, market by market. The rollout started on October 1, 2026, store by store, and must concern all merchants by July 1, 2027. Return and cancellation rules can also be defined by market. The same client brand on Plus is concerned by this switch. Our advice: prepare it outside the peak period, and check the apps that read shipping profiles, because they will need to be updated.
Physical store and marketing
The customer recognized at checkout
Shopify POS can now recognize a customer who has already paid at a Shopify Payments merchant, without having to ask them their details. If they choose a digital ticket (Shop app, email or SMS), the purchase joins their customer sheet. It takes the 11.17 version of POS, Shopify Payments in store and the Shopify Network Intelligence option activated. You can only integrate it into your campaigns if they have accepted marketing. Shopify advances that an identified customer in store has a lifetime value higher by more than 60%.
In France, immediate debit CB cards are now accepted on WisePad 3 and POS Terminal terminals.
WhatsApp and Campaign Autopilot
- WhatsApp reminders: Shopify Messaging offers ready-to-use automations for visits, abandoned carts and payments (Messaging, then Automations). To activate only for customers who have given their consent.
- Campaign Autopilot, available for all merchants since the Growth tab, now covers Meta, Microsoft Advertising, Snapchat, the Shop app and Shopify Messaging, with SEO suggestions to validate. X Ads is announced.
The technical deadlines to note
These dates concern especially your developers and the editors of your apps.
| Date | What changes |
|---|---|
| Since October 1, 2026 | Apps can no longer create or modify script tags |
| January 1, 2027 | Expiring access tokens mandatory for public apps |
| January 15, 2027 | Knowledge Base app closure |
| March 1, 2027 | Script tags no longer load on stores |
| July 1, 2027 | Shipping by market for all merchants |
The first two milestones strengthen application security, a topic we covered in detail in our article on Shopify security.
Six Shopify actions before Black Friday
- Fill out and publish your agentic knowledge base: very quick and easy.
- Run the Shopify Catalog eligibility check and fix products without images or prices.
- Schedule your promos as an Event Rollout, with automatic reversion at the end of the promotion.
- Check that Shop Pay is enabled, a prerequisite for purchases made by agents.
- Enable WhatsApp reminders if you have collected your customers' consent.
- Do not switch your theme to Canvas before the end of the season, and ask your app developers about their plan for script tags and tokens.
To compare with previous waves, reread our review of the Spring 26 Edition and our analysis of the Winter 26 Edition.
Sort through what matters for your store
Not all these new features apply to you, and some require preparation before the peak season. We sort through them for our clients, store by store, based on their plan, markets, and apps. Let's talk about your store.
