Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke confirms leaked internal memo on social media about “hiring AI before humans”
Nickie Louise
Posted On April 7, 2025
A leaked internal memo from Shopify CEO Tobi Lütke has sparked a wave of attention across social media after it revealed just how far the company is leaning into artificial intelligence.
Originally intended for employees, the memo laid out a blunt new reality: AI isn’t just a helpful tool at Shopify—it’s now the baseline. Teams must prove they’ve used AI to its fullest before asking for additional hires or resources. The message was clear: “Hire an AI before you hire a human.”
After the leak, Lütke stepped in to confirm the memo—and take control of the story. “Context: This is a Shopify internal memo that I shared here because it was in the process of being leaked and (presumably) shown in bad faith,” he wrote on X.
He didn’t just confirm it—he backed it fully. “If you’re not using AI by default at Shopify,” he added, “you’re behind.” The shift isn’t theoretical. It’s already reshaping how work gets done across the company.
— tobi lutke (@tobi) April 7, 2025
AI First, Humans Second
The memo, titled “AI usage is now a baseline expectation”, lays it all out. Before asking for more team members or extra resources, Shopify employees need to show they’ve already explored what can be done with AI.
“Stagnation is almost certain, and stagnation is slow-motion failure,” Lütke writes. “If you’re not climbing, you’re sliding.”
That line isn’t just meant to sound intense—it reflects a hard shift in mindset across the company. Shopify isn’t experimenting with AI anymore. It’s going all-in.
From Recommendation to Requirement
AI used to be encouraged. Now, it’s mandatory.
Employees are expected to integrate AI into their work by default. Tools like Copilot, Claude, Cursor, and internal platforms like chat.shopify.io and Proxy are all part of the standard toolkit. Lütke refers to AI not just as something helpful, but as a multiplier—turning 10X employees into 100X teams.
The memo makes clear that AI is now part of the day-to-day, not some future project. Performance reviews will factor in AI usage. Prototypes are expected to be AI-led. People who know how to write better prompts will have an edge.
10 Quick Takeaways from the Memo
One user on X broke down the memo into 10 takeaways that cut through the corporate speak and capture what this really means for the company:
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“Hire an AI before you hire a human.”
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AI fluency is the new baseline. If you’re applying to Shopify, expect that to matter.
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AI agents are treated like teammates now.
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Prompting is a core skill. Top performers will be top prompters.
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AI usage is tracked. Someone will probably build a product around this.
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Prototyping starts with AI. Speed goes up, even inside a $100B company.
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Org charts are starting to include bots.
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AI literacy is becoming the new coding literacy.
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AI isn’t just a feature—it sits next to backend, frontend, and design.
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Shopify wants more output per person, and AI is the path to get there.
Everyone’s In
The memo didn’t spare leadership. “This applies to all of us—including me and the executive team,” Lütke said. And he wasn’t just talking. He mentioned he used AI agents to write his talk for the Shopify Summit last year.
He described how some teams are already hitting levels of productivity that didn’t seem realistic a year ago. People who weren’t on anyone’s radar are now solving high-impact problems simply because they know how to work with AI the right way.
What This Signals
Shopify isn’t just tweaking how teams work—it’s rewriting its internal playbook. Asking for more help? Prove AI can’t do it first. Building something new? Start with AI. Doing performance reviews? Show how you’re using AI effectively.
The pace isn’t slowing down either. Lütke compared it to a Red Queen race from Alice in Wonderland, where you have to run just to stay in place. He said that with Shopify’s growth rate, everyone needs to level up just to keep pace—including him.
Looking Ahead
Lütke wrapped the memo with a call to action. “Our job is to figure out what entrepreneurship looks like in a world where AI is universally available,” he said. “What we need to succeed is our collective sum total skill and ambition at applying our craft, multiplied by AI, for the benefit of our merchants.”
Shopify just made its stance clear: AI isn’t a feature. It’s a foundation. Other companies might want to pay attention—this shift probably isn’t staying inside Shopify for long.
Below is the full post:
Context: This is a Shopify internal memo that I shared here because it was in the process of being leaked and (presumably) shown in bad faith
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Using AI effectively is now a fundamental expectation of everyone at Shopify. It’s a tool of all trades today, and will only grow in importance. Frankly, I don’t think it’s feasible to opt out of learning the skill of applying AI in your craft; you are welcome to try, but I want to be honest I cannot see this working out today, and definitely not tomorrow. Stagnation is almost certain, and stagnation is slow-motion failure. If you’re not climbing, you’re sliding.
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AI must be part of your GSD Prototype phase. The prototype phase of any GSD project should be dominated by AI exploration. Prototypes are meant for learning and creating information. AI dramatically accelerates this process. You can learn to produce something that other team mates can look at, use, and reason about in a fraction of the time it used to take.
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We will add AI usage questions to our performance and peer review questionnaire. Learning to use AI well is an unobvious skill. My sense is that a lot of people give up after writing a prompt and not getting the ideal thing back immediately. Learning to prompt and load context is important, and getting peers to provide feedback on how this is going will be valuable.
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Learning is self directed, but share what you learned. You have access to as much of the cutting edge AI tools as possible.There is chat.shopify.io, which we had for years now. Developers have proxy, Copilot, Cursor, Claude code, all pre-tooled and ready to go. We’ll learn and adapt together as a team. We’ll be sharing Ws (and Ls!) with each other as we experiment with new AI capabilities, and we’ll dedicate time to AI integration in our monthly business reviews and product development cycles. Slack and Vault have lots of places where people share prompts that they developed, like #revenue-ai-use-cases and #ai-centaurs.
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Before asking for more Headcount and resources, teams must demonstrate why they cannot get what they want done using AI. What would this area look like if autonomous AI agents were already part of the team? This question can lead to really fun discussions and projects.
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Everyone means everyone. This applies to all of us—including me and the executive team.
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