Tobias Lütke, CEO of Shopify, speaks at the Collision conference in Toronto, Canada, on May 22, 2019.
David Fitzgerald | Sportsfile | Getty Images
Shopify CEO Tobi Lutke is changing his company’s approach to hiring in the age of artificial intelligence.
Employees will be expected to prove why they “cannot get what they want done using AI” before asking for more headcount and resources, Lutke wrote in a memo to staffers that he posted to X on Monday.
“What would this area look like if autonomous AI agents were already part of the team?” Lutke wrote in the memo, which was sent to employees late last month. “This question can lead to really fun discussions and projects.”
Lutke also said there’s a “fundamental expectation” across Shopify that employees embrace AI in their daily work, saying it has been a “multiplier” of productivity for those who have used it.
“I’ve seen many of these people approach implausible tasks, ones we wouldn’t even have chosen to tackle before, with reflexive and brilliant usage of AI to get 100X the work done,” Lutke wrote.
The company, which sells web-based software that helps online retailers manage sales and run their operations, will factor AI usage into performance reviews, he added.
The directive comes as tech companies have collectively earmarked hundreds of billions of dollars for investing in AI development this year. Shopify has rolled out AI tools for its merchants, including a chatbot called Sidekick and a suite of automation tools, which it dubs “Shopify Magic.”
Just as they’re plowing money into AI, tech companies are looking to streamline costs in other areas, either by discontinuing money-losing projects or through layoffs. In 2024, there were roughly 152,000 roles eliminated across 549 tech companies, according to Layoffs.fyi.
Shopify’s total headcount fell to 8,100 at the end of December from 8,300 a year earlier, according to its latest annual filing. The Canadian company eliminated 14% of its workforce in 2022 and 20% the following year.
At an investor event last month hosted by Morgan Stanley, Shopify CFO Jeff Hoffmeister said the company can “keep headcount relatively flat,” though employee-related costs could vary due to salary differences. He noted that “a higher comp, high-end AI engineer” can lift compensation costs even if headcount is staying the same.
