Shopify's Summer 2025 Edition — codenamed Horizons — is the platform's most expansive feature release in recent memory. Spanning AI tooling, checkout innovation, B2B enhancements, global commerce, and a rebuilt retail POS, the release signals Shopify's intent to serve not just DTC merchants, but complex enterprise and B2B operators at scale.
Here's a comprehensive breakdown of every major announcement and what it means for your store.
Horizon Themes and Visual Editing
Shopify shipped 10 new conversion-optimized themes as part of the Horizons release, covering a broader range of industry verticals than previous rounds. Alongside the themes, the theme editor received a significant UX overhaul — predictive search, conditional block logic, and one-click section duplication make it faster to build and iterate on storefronts.
The biggest addition here is AI-powered theme generation: merchants can input a brand description and generate a complete theme layout within seconds, which the visual editor then makes fully customizable. This dramatically lowers the barrier to a professional-looking storefront for smaller merchants, while giving larger brands a faster starting point for custom builds.
Sidekick AI: From Assistant to Strategist
Sidekick — Shopify's AI assistant — graduated from answering questions to taking multi-step actions. New capabilities include:
- Multi-step reasoning: Sidekick can now identify store trends, flag sales drops, and suggest specific next steps — not just surface data.
- Visual generation: Generate product images, promotional graphics, and storefront assets directly from the admin.
- Mobile and voice access: Sidekick is now accessible from the Shopify mobile app, enabling on-the-go store management.
Checkout Innovation
Checkout received the largest set of updates in the Summer 2025 release:
- Native discount codes in cart: Shopify now supports discount code entry and real-time calculation directly in the cart — no third-party apps needed.
- Faster load times: Shopify improved checkout rendering performance by up to 2 seconds on average.
- Flat-rate split shipping: Merchants can now configure flat-rate costs for split shipments — a common pain point for multi-warehouse fulfillment.
- Expanded Apple Pay compatibility: More payment surfaces and device types now support Apple Pay out of the box.
- PCI DSS v4 compliance: Shopify's checkout infrastructure was updated to meet the latest PCI security standard, reducing merchant compliance burden.
B2B Selling Enhancements
Shopify's B2B capabilities expanded substantially in Horizons:
- Markets for B2B: Merchants can now assign catalogs by buyer group within Shopify Markets, enabling regional or segment-specific B2B pricing without separate stores.
- Min/max order rules: Set minimum and maximum order quantity rules at the catalog level for wholesale buyers.
- Gift cards in B2B catalogs: B2B customers can now redeem and purchase gift cards — useful for employee gifting programs and incentive programs.
- NetSuite sync expansion: Native NetSuite integration deepened with expanded ERP data sync points, reducing the need for custom middleware.
Retail POS v10
Shopify POS v10 is a ground-up rebuild of the point-of-sale interface, with the most significant changes being:
- Custom branding for the POS interface (match your brand identity in-store)
- Smarter search and faster navigation for large product catalogs
- Mixed-fulfillment orders from a single cart (in-store pickup + ship-to-home in one transaction)
- Store credit management directly from POS
- Multi-entity selling for brands operating multiple international store locations
Global Commerce and Localization
- Shopify Payments launched in 16 new countries
- Multi-currency payouts: merchants can now hold balances in up to 8 currencies simultaneously
- Duties and taxes embedded in displayed prices for select markets
- DDP (Delivered Duty Paid) labels for DHL shipments
- Custom submarkets within regions for granular localization
Shipping and Fulfillment
- Bulk label printing: up to 250 labels at once from the Shopify admin
- Barcode-based inventory transfers between locations
- Split fulfillment by quantity (not just by location)
- Improved pick lists and search for warehouse operations
Developer Platform
- Local development without tunnels — a major developer experience improvement
- Plan-specific development stores for accurate testing
- Upgraded Polaris UI components (Shopify's design system)
- Declarative metafields and metaobjects for cleaner data modeling
- Expanded Shopify Flow triggers for custom automation
What It Means for Ecommerce Teams
Horizons is not an incremental update — it's a platform evolution. The combination of AI-native tooling, checkout performance improvements, expanded B2B capabilities, and global commerce infrastructure positions Shopify as a viable option for merchant segments it previously couldn't serve well.
For brands already on Shopify Plus, the immediate priorities should be:
- Audit which new native features replace apps you're currently paying for (cart discounts, checkout content, etc.)
- Evaluate the B2B catalog improvements if you run a wholesale or hybrid D2C/B2B operation
- Test the new checkout performance improvements on your store
- Explore Sidekick AI for content and reporting workflows