The leaked Shopify AI memo: four points every team should read

I never cared much about Shopify. Yes, they are pretty big: about 8 100 employees at the end of 2024, USD 2.81 billion revenue and USD 94.5 billion Gross Merchandise Volume in Q4 2024 alone. Their product is OK, some good, some bad. You can do SEO with Shopify, you just have to jump through some technical hoops.

What I did care about was the memo. On 7 April 2025 an internal memo by Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke leaked, and he published it himself on X. He put into (business jargon) words what is happening right now in every company that takes AI seriously.

Read the full memo at the source. Here is my reading of it, in four points.

Point 1: AI skills are now required for your job

Using AI effectively is not just nice. It is required to survive and succeed. It is a fundamental job skill now. Choosing not to use AI means choosing to become outdated.

The memo’s headline says it plainly: “Reflexive AI usage is now a baseline expectation at Shopify.” Reflexive, as in automatic, instinctive, second nature.

And Lütke does not leave a back door: you are welcome to try opting out, he writes, but he cannot see it working out today, “and definitely not tomorrow”.

Point 2: AI before headcount

Shopify is building AI First into its core operations. How well you use AI will affect your reviews. Need more resources or people? First, you must prove why AI cannot do the job instead.

The line that made the headlines: “Before asking for more headcount and resources, teams must demonstrate why they cannot get what they want done using AI.”

Two more mechanics make it real:

• AI usage questions go into the performance and peer review questionnaire.
• The prototype phase of every project should be dominated by AI exploration.

Point 3: 10x to 100x speed and output is the new standard

Shopify describes itself as a “red queen race”: you run fast just to stay in place. With company growth of 20 to 40% a year, employees must improve at least that much every year. AI is presented as the only way to get there, and even 40% might not be ambitious enough.

The memo talks about colleagues who already deliver 10x, and says that for the first time “the tools become 10X themselves”. Some people, it says, now take on tasks nobody would have tried before and get 100x the work done.

I see the same thing in my workshops. AI is moving fast; you have to run just to stand still. Many of the AI restrictions I pointed out in workshops only months earlier simply were not there anymore by April 2025.

Point 4: practical AI fluency and constant adaptation

You master AI by doing, not by talking about it. Learn fast, use it constantly, figure out how it works best for your tasks, and share what you learn. It takes hands-on, critical use.

And it has to be AI First, because the previous approach was not enough. Lütke admits it himself: the earlier call to tinker with AI was the right one, but it “was too much of a suggestion”.

The memo names what fluency actually means:

• Using AI well is a skill you learn by using it a lot, because it is too unlike everything else.
• Learning to prompt and to load context matters.
• AI as “a thought partner, deep researcher, critic, tutor, or pair programmer”.
• Learning is self-directed, but you share what you learned, wins and losses, with the team.

What this means for your team

The memo is not about Shopify’s product. It puts into words what is happening right now: AI as a required skill, AI before headcount, a much higher output bar, and learning by doing, together, as a team.

So: how is the AI First transformation going at your company? In your team? Are you at Shopify level yet?