Shopify ’s CEO, Tobi Lütke, expects his employees to “be absolutely ahead” when it comes to using artificial intelligence in their day-to-day tasks, according to a recent internal memo shared to his X account Monday.
In the memo, the Shopify co-founder makes it clear that “using AI effectively is now a fundamental expectation of everyone at Shopify.”
More from Sourcing Journal
-
Etsy Launches AI-powered Discovery Experience, Unveiling 6 Emerging Trends
-
This Li & Fung-Backed AI Platform Is Tailor-Made for the Denim Industry
-
Ex-Asia Shipments Expedited, Paused or Delayed Ahead of Tariff Deadline
It seems that expectation could also impact employees’ tenure at Shopify if they’re unable to deliver. Lütke noted that AI usage will become part of performance reviews for employees.
“In a company growing 20-40 percent year over year, you must improve by at least that every year just to re-qualify. This goes for me as well as everyone else,” he said in the memo.
What’s more, employees inside Shopify will now be required to prove why AI is unable to complete a task before they ask to add roles or resources to their teams.
“Before asking for more headcount and resources, teams must demonstrate why they cannot get what they want done using AI,” Lütke wrote. “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.”
Lütke noted throughout the memo that senior leaders, including himself, will be subject to the same policies and practices as the rest of the company. Though he previously put out “a call to action and invitation for everyone to tinker with AI,” he’s now keen to make that a requirement to garner efficiency gains, unlock tasks previously considered “implausible” and more.
“It’s the most rapid shift to how work is done that I’ve seen in my career, and I’ve been pretty clear about my enthusiasm for it,” Lütke wrote in the memo.
It appears another CEO wants to get in on the fun. Ryan Petersen, CEO of freight forwarding company Flexport , replied to Lütke’s post agreeing with the sentiment behind his note to Shopify employees.
“@grok please rewrite this [as] a memo I can pretend I wrote and send to Flexport employees,” Petersen wrote in Lütke’s replies. Grok is an AI chatbot developed by Elon Musk’s xAI.
Flexport recently completed its first winter technology release, which included a variety of tools meant to increase the efficiency of the company’s employees and operations. At the time, Petersen told Sourcing Journal he expects that, the more Flexport is able to automate and leverage AI, the greater its headcount will become.
“My working assumption is that the more you automate, the more people you actually need,” he said, noting that if AI and automation increase the efficiency—and decrease the cost—of everyday operations, the company will need more sales and marketing representatives to keep up with demand.
Shopify and Flexport aren’t the only companies taking an all-in approach on AI with their employees—but not all companies’ CEOs have Petersen’s outlook on increasing headcount.
Klarna has made it clear it plans to slim down its workforce as it continues to integrate more AI solutions. Last year, the company announced it had automated the work of 700 third-party customer service workers with AI; this year, it revealed its own workforce has also been impacted by AI.
In its filing for an initial public offering (IPO) last month, the Swedish company noted that 96 percent of its employees had used generative AI in their day-to-day work, as of August 2024. The company’s executives believe that type of usage is positively impacting its bottom line.
Its “average annual revenue per employee…has increased from approximately $344,000 in 2022 to approximately $821,000 in 2024,” because of the “internal efficiencies” AI usage has created for the company.
That increase may also have to do with the fact that, within those two years, Klarna axed more than 2,000 employees from its workforce. At the end of 2022, it had more than 5,500 employees; at the end of last year, that number had declined to just over 3,400, per its IPO filing. Klarna attributed that dropoff to its technology strategy.
“The reduction in the number of full-time employees resulted from our strategic decision to reduce our overall headcount and drive operational efficiency by leveraging AI in our business and focusing on what really matters to our mission,” the company wrote. “We expect the number of employees to continue to decrease in future periods.”
