Shopify stock slides despite strong fourth quarter and AI shopping push

Shopify’s gross merchandise value, grew 30% in the quarterYou can save this article by registering for free here. Or sign-in if you have an account.Shopify Inc. says it delivered its highest quarterly revenue in its 20-year history during its fourth quarter, but investors didn’t seem very impressed despite it also beating analysts’ revenue expectations.Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.Subscribe now to read the latest news in your city and across Canada.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.Create an account or sign in to continue with your reading experience.The Ottawa-based e-commerce platform company said revenue for the three months ending Dec. 31, 2025, was US$3.67 billion, up 31 per cent from US$2.81 billion a year earlier, helped by continued growth in its core United States market and key international markets such as Europe. Analysts were expecting US$3.6 billion in fourth-quarter revenue.“(Last year) was Shopify at full throttle; driving compounding growth, while laying the rails for the new era of AI commerce,” Shopify president Harley Finkelstein said on a call with investors on Wednesday.Get the latest headlines, breaking news and columns.By signing up you consent to receive the above newsletter from Postmedia Network Inc.A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder.The next issue of Top Stories will soon be in your inbox.We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try againInterested in more newsletters? Browse here.Shopify’s gross merchandise value, or the amount of sales transacted through its platform, grew 30 per cent in the quarter.“Shopify delivered a strong quarter with beats across the board and (first-quarter) guidance above consensus,” John Shao, an analyst at TD Cowen, said in a note on Wednesday. “The continued growth acceleration is consistent with our previous view that Shopify will be a net beneficiary of AI instead of getting disrupted.”Nevertheless, the company’s stock declined about 12.5 per cent by noon on Monday.Shopify also announced a share buyback program of up to US$2 billion.“We are launching this share repurchase program from a position of financial and operating strength, as clearly demonstrated by the results we announced today,” chief financial officer Jeff Hoffmeister said.Shopify expects first-quarter 2026 revenue to continue growing at a “low-30s percentage rate” and gross profit dollars to hover around a high-20 percentage rate.The company said it has doubled down on artificial intelligence-led online shopping in recent months by further integrating AI into its merchant platform and making a larger push into agentic AI commerce, which Finkelstein said the company is well-positioned for.“The AI era has now reached commerce. We have trillions of data points from billions of transactions across millions of merchants,” he said. “We believe we have a more diverse commerce dataset than anyone else on the internet.”Shopify and Google LLC in January launched the Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP) to help AI agents complete purchases for shoppers. It has been endorsed by major retailers such as Walmart Inc. and Wayfair LLC, and Finkelstein said orders coming to Shopify stores from AI searches are up 15 times from January 2025.“While it is too early to see in the data, we believe Shopify’s agentic commerce stack has strong growth potential,” Martin Toner, managing director, equity research, growth and innovation at ATB Cormark Capital Markets Corp., said in a note on Monday. “We believe agentic AI is a force multiplier … and we will see a revenue impact in the (second half of) 2026.”In September 2025, Shopify teamed up with OpenAI Inc. on a new function called Instant Checkout, which allows ChatGPT users to search for, select and buy products straight from the chatbot. The partnership will allow more than one million Shopify merchants to sell their goods via ChatGPT, including brands such as Kim Kardashian’s SKIMS Body Inc. and beauty company Glossier Inc.Shopify sellers using the function will have to pay a four per cent fee to OpenAI, which has investors worried that merchant uptake could be less than expected, but Toner said such fears may be overblown.“Shopify has established relationships with Google and Microsoft, and we believe it remains an agentic commerce beneficiary,” he said.The company first launched its still-growing Shopify Magic AI toolkit for sellers in 2023, which gives merchants the ability to use AI more efficiently and effectively to generate things such as product images and descriptions, as well as answers to customer queries.It is also weaving AI internally in a bid to boost productivity at the same time that it is slashing its headcount. Founder and chief executive Tobias Lütke has told Shopify employees that using AI effectively is a “fundamental expectation.”Toner said Shopify’s minimal headcount growth and AI-driven marketing efficiency will help it boost growth and maintain profitability.• Email: ylau@postmedia.comPostmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion. Please keep comments relevant and respectful. Comments may take up to an hour to appear on the site. You will receive an email if there is a reply to your comment, an update to a thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information.