Recently, Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke issued one of the clearest executive memos in recent memory. It didn’t announce a product. It didn’t outline a new business line. It announced how his company will work.
“It’s now a baseline expectation that everyone at Shopify uses AI in their workflow.”
He made another rule. Before any team adds headcount, the manager must prove that AI can’t do the job. Shopify is shifting from AI-enabled to AI-native. And it’s doing so by resetting the company’s expectations.
Shopify isn’t a slow-moving company. But scaling a product is not the same as scaling a mindset. Lütke’s AI mandate is a direct attempt to reshape the culture—not just through values, but through metrics. AI fluency will now be considered in performance reviews. Peer feedback will reflect it. Hiring decisions will route through it.
This is not easy to execute. New expectations risk becoming shallow rituals. Teams might adopt AI tools superficially—asking ChatGPT to write recaps or using code assistants for boilerplate—but stop short of integrating AI into real decision loops. And in roles like enterprise sales or legal, where nuance and trust drive outcomes, AI may not be a substitute at all.
Execution, not ambition, will define whether this works.
Still, this shift is not just defensible—it’s overdue. Across sectors, AI is already reshaping how customers discover, buy, support, and engage. AI is no longer a competitive advantage. It’s becoming the infrastructure layer of the modern company. If your customers are AI-native—and your competitors are AI-native—your company can’t afford to operate on pre-AI workflows. This memo is simply a reflection of this new normal.
This decision is also financially sound. Lütke is not cutting costs blindly. He’s raising the bar for resource deployment. Capital—especially human capital—should follow a clear logic: use automation where you can, hire when you must. That’s smart governance. Investors want productivity without unnecessary sprawl. And employees who learn to work effectively with AI today will lead the workforce tomorrow.
But again, success depends on how this is rolled out. If the policy outpaces the tooling, adoption will feel forced. If the shift is top-down only, middle management may become the blocker. And if experimentation is penalized rather than rewarded, the cultural reset will stall.
The leadership playbook now requires both: cost discipline and capability building.
Shopify’s bet is that a company of 10,000+ people can operate with that level of clarity. If it works, it could become the new standard for modern tech organizations.
Clear expectations. Leaner teams. Faster loops. Higher standards. Love it.