Shopify CEO lists AI skills as a "fundamental expectation" — Employees must prove AI can't do the job before asking for resources

Recently, an internal Microsoft document leaked, indicating that the company uses official forms for critical employees to request retention bonuses. Interestingly, the forms included a specific field that highlights the employee's contributions toward Microsoft's AI efforts.

This information emerged soon after we learned that the Redmond giant handsomely compensates its AI staff compared to employees working in other divisions like Azure.

Now, it's clear that Microsoft isn't the only company with a keen operating focus on AI; Shopify is in the fold, too.

Shopify is an e-commerce platform designed to allow businesses to create and manage online stores, providing pre-made tools for product listing, payment processing, and sales management.

Last month, Shopify's CEO, Tobias Lütke, shared an internal memo with employees indicating, "Reflexive AI usage is now a baseline expectation at Shopify."

While the information was seemingly supposed to remain under wraps, it emerged across social media platforms, coercing the executive to share the memo publicly (via Tom's Hardware).

The memo interestingly indicated that staffers would need to prove that a job can't be done using AI before asking for additional support through hiring more people:

"Before asking for more Headcount and resources, teams must demonstrate why they cannot get what they want done using AI."

CEO Tobias Lütke indicated that it was a "fundamental expectation" for employees to integrate AI into their workflows. Perhaps more interestingly, the executive claimed AI had proven to be a "multiplier of productivity" for organizations that had already embraced it.

According to Lütke:

“I’ve seen many of these people approach implausible tasks, ones we wouldn’t even have chosen to tackle before, with reflexive and brilliant usage of AI to get 100X the work done.”

Integrating AI across workflows at Shopify seems like a hard rule for employees, including the executive team. The CEO indicated that the adoption and use of AI will play a crucial role during performance reviews.

Interestingly, Shopify isn't the only company hopping onto the AI bandwagon and integrating the technology into its workflow. Last year, Klarna_, a Swedish fintech company, indicated that it is embracing AI to get things done faster and easier with fewer employees.

Technically, the company isn't laying off its employees to replace them with AI. Instead, when an employee leaves the company, it essentially won't recruit new hires to fill any vacancy.