Shopify wants to be the checkout layer under every AI agent, and its Spring 2026 edition shipped 150-plus updates to prove it. Meanwhile air freight spot rates climbed 41% year over year while demand grew 4%. Somebody is paying for that gap. Shopify Spring 2026: building the plumbing for agents Checkout now runs inside Microsoft Copilot, paid with Shop Pay. There&#x27;s a universal commerce protocol built with Google. A new agentic commerce plan lets brands sell across ChatGPT and the Shop app without ever being on Shopify. Native B2B is getting pushed down to every plan, aimed at a $36 trillion market. The bet is clear: own the merchant-of-record layer before the agents do. Kimberly-Clark: $3 billion to fix the supply chain Two years into a five-year productivity program. CFO Nelson Urdaneta points to simpler manufacturing, a redrawn distribution network, and more automation. A $1 billion automated DC is going into Beech Island, South Carolina, plus an advanced plant in Ohio. The Kenvue merger closes in the back half and lets them pack trucks tighter by mixing heavy and high-volume goods. Amazon&#x27;s Peter DeSantis at VivaTech: AI is nowhere near done DeSantis says models need to get 100 to 1,000 times more efficient before they&#x27;re genuinely useful. The next leap comes from speed: a 40-millisecond reaction time to match human conversation. His fix is a flywheel where chips and models get designed together to drop cost and lift performance. Air freight: 41% up on 4% demand Spot rates hit $3.40 per kilo in May. Surcharges, fuel swings, and Middle East instability are doing the work, not volume. Northeast Asia is up 39%, Southeast Asia up 33%, and Europe to North America has softened. Most of that cargo is data center hardware and semiconductors. The Investor Minute contains 5 stories this week. The Watson Weekly is sponsored by Avalara. It works with platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce, and WooCommerce, helping teams manage compliance faster and scale with confidence. Learn more at avalara.watsonweekly.com.

June 22nd, 2026: Shopify Editions: Spring 2026, Kimberly-Clark Supply Chain, Amazon's DeSantis at VivaTech, and Air Freight: 41% Up on 4% Demand

The Watson Weekly: eCommerce Strategy & News

# Full Transcript

**Podcast:** The Watson Weekly: eCommerce Strategy &amp; News

## Transcript

The Watson Weekly Podcast is sponsored by Avalara. For eCommerce brands, tax compliance gets more complicated with every new channel, state, product, and market. Avalara agentic tax and compliance helps automate the work behind the scenes so merchants can deliver a smoother customer experience with accurate tax calculation at checkout, clear visibility into tariffs and duties, and fewer surprises for customers when their order arrives. Avalara works with eCommerce platforms like Shopify, BigCommerce,

WooCommerce, and more, helping teams manage compliance faster and scale with more confidence. To learn more about Avalara's eCommerce compliance solutions and explore resources built for growing eCommerce brands, go to avalara.watsonweekly.com for more details. It's June 23rd, 2026, and this is the Watson Weekly, your essential eCommerce digest. Today on our show, Shopify Edition is a

Spring 2026, Spring 2026, Kimberly-Clark Improves Supply Chain Productivity. Amazon CTO Peter DeSantis at VivaTech. And Air Freight SpotRates have spiked. And finally, the Investor Minute, which contains five items this week from the world of venture capital, acquisitions, and IPOs. But first in our shopping cart full of news, Shopify Edition Spring 2026.

Shopify is becoming the merchant record layer under the AI agents. Whoever wins the AI front end, ChatGBT, CoPilot, Gemini, the order lands in the merchant's admin and the customer stays the merchant's. Agenda Commerce is the spine of connectivity.

This last week, Shopify dropped the Spring 2026 editions, and there are over 150 updates. But ignore the feature count. The story is what quietly seems to be what Shopify is trying to become, the checkout layer underneath the AI agents.

Let's take a look at what shipped and not necessarily just the marketing. Checkout now runs inside Microsoft CoPilot, paid with ShopPay. Key phrase. On a universal commerce protocol, Shopify built with Google. By the way, who cares about universal commerce protocol? Shopify cares a heck of a lot about ShopPay.

There's a new agentic commerce plan that Shopify announced some months back that even brands who don't use Shopify at all can use. It can sync your products, sell across ChatGBT and the Shop app. No Shopify store required. And you can now run your store from inside Claude or ChatGBT. And if you read all those things together, Shopify isn't just trying to win that AI shopping assistant. It's also trying to be the thing that every assistant plugs into.

So it doesn't matter whether ChatGPT, Gemini or CoPilot or whoever wins the front end. The order would still land in the merchant's admin who still needs a place to manage and then route orders. The customer still belongs to the merchant and Shopify could then stay the merchant of record. That is kind of the game. When your storefront stops being a website and becomes a row in someone's A...

June 22nd, 2026: Shopify Editions: Spring 2026, Kimberly-Clark Supply Chain, Amazon's DeSantis at VivaTech, and Air Freight: 41% Up on 4% Demand

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June 22nd, 2026: Shopify Editions: Spring 2026, Kimberly-Clark Supply Chain, Amazon's DeSantis at VivaTech, and Air Freight: 41% Up on 4% Demand

Transcript

Built for investment professionals

Every day you wait, your competitors are findingedge in conversations you're not hearing.

Every day you wait, your competitors are finding
edge in conversations you're not hearing.