Shopify's Fall '26 Edition came out on 28 October with a long list of AI shopping features. This is one of the dull ones. It's also one you can do something about today, and it costs nothing but a cup of tea.

What's actually changed

The Edition's line on this is simple: "Review and approve the facts that get shared with agents". In practice that means a Knowledge base page under Sales channels, then Agentic, then Sources. Shopify's help page describes these facts as the source of truth for non-product questions, such as returns, shipping and brand values. When a shopper asks one of those questions in an AI chat, the agent queries your knowledge base.

Product questions are handled separately, through Shopify Catalog. More on that in a moment.

The content is grouped into categories: About the Store, Brand and Identity, Company policies, Contact, Gift services, Payment, Returns and warranty, Second hand, Fulfillment, and Additional facts. Each field gets its information from one place: a scan of your storefront, somewhere in your Shopify admin (your policies, say) or something typed in by hand.

If you installed the old Knowledge Base app, you need to know this bit too. That app is being replaced by this page and can no longer be installed. If you had 1,000 facts or fewer, your facts and overrides move across and publish automatically. If you had more than that, the extras need adding by hand. The app is deprecated on 15 January 2027.

The detail most people will miss

Not everything on that page waits for your approval, and this is the part I'd want to know.

Facts Shopify generates by scanning your storefront stay unpublished until you publish them. Fine. But facts linked to admin data, such as your policies and contact details, are published when Shopify creates them. So if the refund policy sitting in your admin settings hasn't been touched since 2021, that's what may be going out.

Published facts aren't private notes either. Shopify says your published knowledge base is publicly available through the Storefront MCP, and it can be used by AI channels, including Shop, and by third-party platforms. Think of it as another page on your website, and write it with the same care.

In fairness to Shopify, the control is sensible. Its help page says: "Shopify never changes knowledge base content on your behalf." New findings from a scan turn up as a suggested update, and you approve or reject them. But that cuts both ways. Nothing gets corrected unless somebody goes and looks, and Shopify also says a scan won't always spot a change you've made to your storefront.

What I'd check this week

Black Friday is four weeks today, so this is a sensible moment. Here's the order I'd do it in.

  • Open the page. From your admin, go to Sales channels, then Agentic, and under Sources click Knowledge Base. You'll need to be the store owner or have the right permission, so if it isn't there, that's probably why.
  • Read your returns and delivery facts as if you were a customer. Is the returns window right? Does it mention your Christmas cut-off dates, or any extended returns you're offering for the season? Keep in mind that scans can miss things, so type in anything important yourself.
  • Fix the source, not just the fact. If a policy is wrong, correct it in your admin settings as well as here. Otherwise your site and your knowledge base can disagree, and that's a customer service email waiting to happen.
  • Add the questions you get every day. Additional facts come in three types: a paragraph the agent rephrases, a yes or no answer, or a list of tags. Do you ship to Ireland? Do you offer gift wrapping? Are the products vegan? These are ideal for it. You've got a limit of 1,000 facts, so nobody's running out of room.
  • Check your Catalog status. Back on that Agentic page, look at Sources, then Shopify Catalog. If your store isn't eligible, Shopify shows the reason and a suggested fix. Eligibility is reviewed over time, so a store can gain or lose it, and the rules cover things like product data and account history.

A few honest caveats

First, don't get carried away. Some of this is still arriving, and how much of it reaches British shoppers isn't clear yet. Take Shopify's direct checkout in Google's AI Mode and the Gemini app. Your store can be based anywhere, so a UK business can use it, but the help page says your customers must be in the United States, Canada or Australia. If you only sell to the UK, that one isn't for you yet. The knowledge base page doesn't mention regions at all, so I wouldn't assume either way.

Second, a fact in your knowledge base doesn't guarantee a perfect answer. Shopify's developer docs for its Ask capability, which is still marked as a draft, make the point that an answer doesn't always mean the store has the information. So treat this as giving agents the best chance of getting it right, not as a guarantee they will.

Third, if your store is headless or built on a custom storefront, the setup is a bit different. Shopify says custom storefronts and stores on its Agentic plan can only add additional facts, and a password-protected store can't be scanned at all. So don't assume your knowledge base has filled itself in. It may need writing by hand.

The bigger picture

None of this needs a developer for most stores, and I'm not going to pretend otherwise. If you've got a standard Shopify store, you can do all of it yourself this afternoon.

It gets trickier when the truth about your business lives somewhere else, such as delivery promises in a warehouse system, stock rules in an ERP or customer questions scattered across a helpdesk. Then keeping one accurate version of the facts becomes a proper job, and that's where our custom Shopify development and integration work comes in. Our Shopify services page covers the rest, including migrations and connecting Shopify to back-office systems.

If you'd like a second pair of eyes on your store before the Christmas rush, drop us a line.

Cheers, Rob