CanadaTechnology and telecom2025 – ongoingShopify
CEO memo making AI use a baseline expectation
Shopify told teams to show AI could not do a job before asking for headcount, and its staff shrank as revenue grew
Problem
After cutting 14% of its workforce in 2022 and at least 20% in 2023, Shopify wanted to keep growing with roughly flat headcount. Management saw routine use of AI tools by every employee as the way to do it.
Approach
In late March 2025 CEO Tobi Lütke sent staff a memo stating that reflexive AI use was a baseline expectation, and he posted it publicly on 7 April. Teams asking for more headcount or resources must first show why the work cannot be done with AI, and AI use was added to performance reviews. The memo asked teams to imagine their area with autonomous AI agents already on the team.
Results
Takeaway
Shopify made AI use part of its hiring and performance rules across the company. Headcount fell from about 8,100 to about 7,600 in 2025 as revenue rose 30%, but Shopify has not linked either change to the memo or published a direct measure of AI's effect.
Categories
- Industry
- Technology and telecom
- Business function
- Strategy and organizationHuman resources
- Innovation type
- Organization and ways of working
- AI technology
- Generative AI
- Adoption
- Off-the-shelf tool or platform
- Evidence
- Company's own claim
Sources
Source summaries
CNBC reports that Tobi Lütke sent the memo in late March and posted it on X after it began to leak. Teams must show why AI cannot do the work before requesting headcount, and AI use will count in performance reviews. CNBC cites the annual filing for a fall in headcount to 8,100 from 8,300 and notes cuts of 14% in 2022 and 20% in 2023.
Digital Commerce 360 reports that AI use became a baseline expectation, employees must justify why a task cannot be done with AI before asking for resources, and AI skill becomes part of performance reviews and hiring. It quotes Lütke describing AI as a multiplier and warning that stagnation is "slow-motion failure".
Shopify's annual report states that it had approximately 7,600 employees worldwide at 31 December 2025 and reports total revenue of $11.56 billion for 2025, against $8.88 billion in 2024. It says the company intends to expand without significant additional hiring in the near term, and records a reduction of about 23% of employees in May 2023.
Full details are in the original sources.
