Shopify Sidekick vs. Steward: when the built-in assistant is enough, and when it isn't
Shopify Sidekick is a strong built-in assistant. When it is all you need, and when a team needs approvals, shared history and its ERP as well.
Sidekick in one paragraph
Sidekick is Shopify’s own AI assistant. It lives inside the Shopify admin and is included with Shopify plans. It can answer questions about your sales, help write product descriptions, set up discounts, build reports and guide you through settings. Because it is built by Shopify, it understands Shopify’s features very well and works inside the admin where your staff already are.
If your business is only Shopify, and the people using Sidekick are trusted to make the changes they ask for, Sidekick is an excellent starting point. Try it before you look at anything else.
Where teams start to need more
Over time, many stores outgrow a purely built-in assistant. Usually it happens for one of four reasons.
1. Your business is bigger than Shopify
Orders arrive in Shopify, but stock, invoices and purchasing live in an ERP such as weclapp. Questions like “Which bestsellers are about to run out in the warehouse?” need both systems. A Shopify-only assistant sees only half of the picture.
2. Preparing and approving should be different people
In many companies, the person who prepares a change is not the person who approves it. A marketing assistant drafts 40 new product descriptions, and the owner approves them. A support agent prepares a refund, and finance releases it. That four-eyes principle needs a review step built into the AI workflow.
3. Some actions should always be reviewed
Refunds, order cancellations, publishing and deleting are actions you want reviewed every time, not only when someone remembers to ask.
4. The team needs one shared record
When a price, discount or text changed, the team wants to see who asked, what the AI proposed and who approved it, in one place and months later.
How Steward complements Sidekick
Steward does not replace Shopify’s admin. It is a shared AI workspace that connects to Shopify and your other business tools:
- Several systems in one conversation. Connect Shopify, weclapp and, for hotels, ASA HOTEL to the same project.
- Project roles. Viewers follow results, Contributors use configured connections and prepare changes, and Managers approve. Invited project members need no separate connection grant.
- Proposals by default. In Ask for approval mode, changes are prepared and then approved or rejected as a whole batch.
- Always-review actions. Refunds, payment capture, cancellations, fulfillment, publishing, deletion and customer notifications always need approval in Steward.
- Shared projects and scheduled tasks. Questions, files, decisions and recurring scheduled reports belong to the team.
- Reviewable bulk changes. Large imports become bulk proposals that the approver can download and check row by row.
Sidekick and Steward side by side
| Shopify Sidekick | Steward | |
|---|---|---|
| Where it lives | Inside the Shopify admin | A separate team workspace |
| Systems | Shopify | Shopify, weclapp, ASA HOTEL |
| Best at | Shopify features, settings and store tasks | Cross-system questions and reviewed team changes |
| Prepare vs. approve | The staff member asking confirms | Project roles: Viewer, Contributor, Manager |
| Mandatory reviews | Shopify’s own confirmations | Refunds, cancellations, publishing, deletion and more |
| Shared team history | Not its focus | Project conversations with approvals |
| Bulk changes | Through Shopify’s own tools | Fully downloadable bulk proposals |
Use both
You can use both tools. Sidekick handles quick tasks and settings inside the admin. Steward handles questions that span systems, changes that need a second pair of eyes and the recurring reports the whole team relies on.
Get started
Prepare your Shopify app and connect it to Steward. If you also run weclapp, read Shopify and weclapp in one conversation.