Shares of Shopify (TSX:SHOP) could be in for a wave of growth as the rise of agentic trading becomes one of the hottest online shopping trends since the rise of the Internet. It’s undoubtedly very funny to imagine that you can chat with a large language model (LLM) and buy things without having to open a web browser on your phone or press a button to complete a purchase. The advent of one-click shopping now appears to be going the way of zero-click purchasing and AI-enabled product discovery.
And now that that last bit of friction has been eliminated, I think there’s serious potential for merchants, especially those on the Shopify platforms, to really gain an edge, perhaps over their much larger retail rivals. If you’re interacting with a chatbot and not a digital store, the playing field may be level across the entire e-commerce scene. Of course, the big retailers will have their own AI and agents to keep customers on board with their ecosystems.
SHOP shares are under pressure (and for no good reason)
However, I think Shopify, which recently saw its market cap fall below the $200 billion mark during a rapid correction, will see far more gains than critics and some analysts would admit. Certainly, the future is getting murky as AI and agents aim to change the tech landscape forever. In a way, agents are just as impressive as LLMs were way back in 2023.
Once customers get their hands on agent AI, I think shopping will be one of the biggest areas of transformation. Of course, there will be winners and losers when a new technology changes the competitive arena. Shopify, I think, should be seen as one of the bigger winners, especially as the company is betting heavily on AI and agentic technologies. Maybe it’s time to think of Shopify as an AI shopping play instead of just a place to score a fancy dashboard and digital storefront.
With great partnerships in place with some of the biggest, brightest mega-cap titans in tech, I think SHOP stock has what it takes to regain ground, perhaps thanks to a shockingly good quarterly result boosted by the tailwinds of AI shopping.
Of course, it’s hard to say exactly when agentic trading will peak (is a J-shaped surge in the offing? It’s hard to say), but it could happen sooner than investors are prepared for. With so many AI tools hitting the market this year, AI is about to become useful, perhaps too useful, and in a short space of time that’s enough to leave many a little uneasy. Developments are happening very quickly and things (particularly software stocks) are breaking down. But the companies themselves, I think, are ready for the rise of AI agents.
Shopify is positioned to win
Either way, agentic AI looks like a big win for Shopify, provided it can invest in the right places. Given the company’s focus on AI and agents, I think the runway has been cleared. But will stocks take off? That’s the trillion-dollar question. Be that as it may, the nearly 40% share price drop due to AI-driven software fears seems exaggerated, especially given the monetization potential of AI shopping.
While 82.2 times price-to-earnings ratio seems like a high price to pay for Shopify, I think the premium is worth it given the growth shock that could loom. Of all the software plays, I’m inclined to consider Shopify to be the best positioned as the world enters the agent age.
#Great #Canadian #Tech #Stocks #Buy #Hold #Decades