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Ever feel like you could do with an extra pair of hands to help you with a burdensome workload or demanding project?
At e-commerce platform Shopify, employees who feel such a strain can’t necessarily expect extra headcount on their teams anytime soon, according to their chief executive.
Instead, CEO Tobi Lutke has ordered staff to prove they “cannot get what they want done using AI,” before asking for extra hires.
Shopify CEO orders staff to embrace AI agents
On Monday, the executive published an internal memo on X, following reports it had been leaked elsewhere.
In the memo, first sent to staff in March, Lutke set out Shopify’s approach to AI usage in the workplace, calling it a “baseline expectation” for employees.
“Using AI effectively is now a fundamental expectation of everyone at Shopify,” the notice said.
Staff were ordered to test AI in their daily work, with a much firmer mandate to use the tools than before.
Lutke wrote that merely encouraging his workforce to “tinker” and “dispel any skepticism or confusion” with AI during a demo last summer was “too much of a suggestion.”
“This is what I want to change here today,” he added.
Citing employees who are reportedly ten times more productive thanks to AI, Shopify’s chief exec said staff must “demonstrate why they cannot get what they want done using AI” before they ask for “headcount and more resources.”
“What would this area look like if autonomous AI agents were already part of the team?” the memo continued. “This question can lead to really fun discussions and projects.”
The policies around AI usage and hiring, according to Lutke, apply to all staff and teams, regardless of seniority: “Everyone means everyone. This applies to all of us—including me and the executive teams.”
AI usage now a part of Shopify’s performance reviews
To ensure employees are complying with the order to use AI, Lutke confirmed that AI usage questions would be added to Shopify’s performance and peer review questionnaire.
With employees not just expected to use AI, but to use AI “effectively,” Lutke told employees that learning and development must be “self-directed.”
“Learning to use AI well is an unobvious skill,” he wrote. “My sense is that a lot of people give up after writing a prompt and not getting the ideal thing back immediately. Learning to prompt and load context is important, and getting peers to provide feedback on how this is going will be valuable.”
Staff will be expected to share learnings from AI experimentation during monthly business review meetings and product development processes.
The memo noted that Shopify staff have access to “as much of the cutting-edge AI tools as possible.”
Lutke was optimistic about the potential impact that AI adoption at Shopify is already having, and that it may continue to have: “I’ve seen many of these people approach implausible tasks, ones we wouldn’t have chosen to tackle before, with reflective and brilliant usage of AI to get 100X the work done.”
“AI will totally change Shopify, our work, and the rest of our lives,” the chief exec said. “We're all in on this!”
Shopify reduced company headcount by approximately 14% in 2022 through layoffs, and by a further 20% in 2023. According to its most recent annual statement, headcount fell a further 2.5% by December 2024.
