The Implications Of Shopify's Bold Move to Block AI Shopping Bots | Fast Five Shorts
This week on the Omni Talk Retail Fast Five podcast, sponsored by the A&M Consumer and Retail Group, Simbe, Mirakl, and Ocampo Capital, we examine Shopify's proactive stance on AI agent regulation.
Shopify is drawing boundaries around agentic AI with new language in merchant websites' robots.txt files, stating "scraping, buy from me agents, or any end-to-end flow that completes payment without a final review step is not permitted." The move shows Shopify thinking ahead to protect its ecosystem while directing legitimate integrators to use official APIs.
🔔 Subscribe for weekly retail insights!
⏩ Topics Covered:
📌 00:00 – Headline Details
📌 01:50 – Understanding Shopify's robots.txt Changes
📌 04:25 – David Brown: Why This Is Great News
📌 07:40 – The Bot Problem in Concert Tickets & Restaurants
📌 10:15 – Boardroom Attention to Agentic AI
📌 13:30 – Chad Lusk on AI Risk Management
📌 16:45 – The Talent War for AI Skills
📌 19:20 – Chris Walton: Lobbying for Bot Regulation
📌 22:10 – Marketplace 2.0 Predictions
For the full episode head here: https://youtu.be/sgweq_AtMms
#shopify #agenticai #aiagents #botregulation #ecommerce #retailautomation #aiethics #retailtech #omnitalk
This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis:
Podcorn - https://podcorn.com/privacy
Transcript
Shopify is setting boundaries for AI agents on its merchant sites.
Speaker A:According to modern retail, Shopify is drawing a line in the sand on agentic AI, the type of bots that autonomously complete tasks on their own without human inputs.
Speaker A:With new language across merchant websites that appears aimed at blocking agentic AI systems, Shopify now includes a warning in their code that powers merchant storefronts, telling bots what they can and can't do do.
Speaker A:The message appears in each site's robots.
Speaker A:Txt file, a standard tool websites use to give instructions to automated crawlers like search engines.
Speaker A:The new line states, quote automated scraping buy for me agents or any end to end flow that completes payment without a final review step is not permitted.
Speaker A:End quote.
Speaker A:The move, however, is not likely an outright rejection of a gentic AI.
Speaker A:The language direct.
Speaker A:The added language directs legitimate integrators to use its official checkout kit.
Speaker A:In other words, the change shows Shopify is thinking ahead, drawing early boundaries between controlled integration and unregulated automation.
Speaker A:Shopify merchants could theoretically override the robots.
Speaker A:Txt file as Shopify is a content management system.
Speaker A:In other words, the change shows Shopify is thinking ahead, drawing early boundaries between controlled integration and unregulated automation.
Speaker A:But the default setting suggests the platform is trying to protect its ecosystem by discouraging unauthorized AI scraping and checkout information.
Speaker A:David, we're going to ask you a more top level question here.
Speaker A:I won't ask you about robots text files, but are retail boardrooms giving enough attention to agentic AI, or is Shopify ahead of the curve and trying to curve AI bot activity on its properties?
Speaker B:So a couple things here, Ann.
Speaker B:One, I think this is the best news I have heard this year from a shop.
Speaker B:Yeah, I'll tell you why, like if you try to book a reservation in New York City for any restaurant that's worth going to if you want the latest collab with Adidas and Bonner, or pick any collabs that are out when they drop, you want to try to buy concert tickets on the day of release, you can't do any of that anymore.
Speaker B:As a person that is sitting in front of a computer and waiting for 10am and then clicking.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:It just doesn't happen.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Because all of the bots have completely taken over.
Speaker B:So I actually think this brings some validity back to the online shopping experience and allows humans to participate, which I think is.
Speaker B:Which is a great thing.
Speaker B:To your broader question, I think boardrooms are starting to pay attention to agentic AI in a lot of different ways.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:I think it's it's, it's very analogous to almost the outsourcing journey.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:As like we, you know, there's the commodity stuff you can do with, with agentic AI of data aggregation and, and things like that and you know, and like automating certain things or eliminating certain things.
Speaker B:I think it's really tip of spear stuff and very few people are doing really cool pricing, personalization, merchandising stuff yet because they a.
Speaker B:The skill set is outrageously expensive to hire right now because there's not enough of it.
Speaker B:So you're only seeing kind of the largest players primarily in the tech space that are kind of really pushing the envelope.
Speaker B:I don't, I think retailers are a step or two behind the curve, but I think they're starting to realize that they are a step or two behind the curve.
Speaker B:And the next couple years are going to be interesting to see A, the talent war and then B, how that talent is deployed to help retailers.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker A:Well, certainly a reason I think, like you said, I thought this was one of the most intriguing stories that we had this week on the Fast five, but certainly something that, you know, is going to push hopefully more retailers to start putting more focus on this as a priority for them.
Speaker A:Chad, where do you, where do you sit on this?
Speaker A:Are you, are you feeling like this is being talked about enough in boardrooms that you're sitting in?
Speaker C:Well, I think there's probably lots of talk in boardrooms about agentic AI, but maybe not from the, I don't know, kind of ethical or, you know, perspective that Shopify is coming at it.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:So, you know, it's about commerce maximization and I do think Shopify is ahead of the curve.
Speaker C:Curve in terms of thinking about that activity.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:I mean this, this raises huge questions around enforceability and legal consent and E commerce.
Speaker C:And personally, to me, I, I'm in all in favor for slow playing AI in places where AI decision making imposes risk.
Speaker C:I mean, I, I love the idea of it.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:I mean the consequences of allowing AI free reign to, you know, make mistakes or, you know, whatever the ramifications, like it can cost a lot of money at the very least, piss a lot of people off.
Speaker C:So there is a spectrum in terms of, in its development how AI should be used in decision making.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:And as David said, you know, the super repetitive, lower risk, quite frankly, if there's little for the human to add.
Speaker C:Yeah, let AI run wild.
Speaker C:Right.
Speaker C:But in these cases where either AI can err or it provides an imbalance in the market.
Speaker C:So either around what the AI will do, so it's a risk based decision or, you know, if there's something that a human can add to the decision or execution.
Speaker C:So more of a value based decision.
Speaker C:We need the human intervention at least until, you know, we're developed at that point.
Speaker C:And Shopify is saying that's the case with agentic AI and frankly, I'm not going to push back on that.
Speaker A:Yeah, I mean, I think you make a really good point, Chad.
Speaker A:And I think it just re emphasizes how important this is because I think we, we have to all be agile and ready to react and adapt our businesses to, you know, to be, you know, in a position to change if we need to based on how search is going to be happening.
Speaker A:I mean, I think we look at how Amazon was doing this, you know, you, you could shop aloe yoga and buy a bra on Amazon even though they weren't in the, in the Amazon marketplace.
Speaker A:I think it's going to be really important for all brands, all retailers to, to focus on how this is going to continue to shift and then how search behavior is going to shift as a result.
Speaker A:But Chris Walton, close us out.
Speaker D:Oh my God.
Speaker D:Yeah, I've got a lot of, a lot of thoughts on this one.
Speaker D:I mean, I think, you know, if I look at, from the executive perspective, the first question I ask myself is why do we allow any of this?
Speaker D:You know, why do we allow bots to come in and scrape pricing?
Speaker D:Like if I'm Walmart, why do I want my pricing out in, in the, in the, in the Internet sphere?
Speaker D:Like, why does that, why do we allow that to happen?
Speaker D:And so then I start thinking about the lobby efforts across the retail industry and I'm like, you know, we're spending all this time lobbying for credit card processing fees.
Speaker D:Why aren't we lobbying for regulation to, you know, limit bot activity or to control bot activity in some way, shape or form?
Speaker D:So that's one question.
Speaker D:But given that there's an absence of that, then the bigger question for me is how does what we're talking about evolve?
Speaker D:And my gut tells me that the agentic AI platforms are going to start, it's going to become Marketplace 2.0 and those agentic AI platforms are going to get a cut of the revenue directed from those retailers that ultimately allow them to plug in simply and easily.
Speaker D:It won't be everybody, but it's going to be some of them.
Speaker D:And so the task list for me, if I'm a CEO or, you know, I'm in that boardroom trying to say how do I do this?
Speaker D:Is I have to ask myself what am I okay with getting scraped?
Speaker D:And what am I not okay with getting scraped?
Speaker D:Like do I want agentic agents on my site checking out for someone without my, without that customer ever entering into my property?
Speaker D:My, my guess is they, a lot of people probably don't.
Speaker D:So then it comes down to what's it going to cost for me to prevent certain information from getting transmitted that way?
Speaker D:I don't know the answer to that.
Speaker D:I don't even know if it's even possible.
Speaker D:But those are the discussions you've got to start outlining what are we okay with, what are we not and then go from there.
Speaker D:In my opinion.
Speaker A:Yeah, and not just the, the economic costs, but what are the costs if the customer can't purchase?
Speaker A:Like are you going to see a reduction in shop in customers spend or awareness of your product if you're not allowing that activity too?
Speaker D:You don't get the first party data, you don't get anything that you're used to getting.
Speaker D:There's a lot of costs that come with allowing sites or bots to scrape you in ways that you're not ready for.
