Each six months, Shopify releases a brand new Version: a broad showcase of instruments, updates, and concepts that mirror each the present state of ecommerce and the place the platform is headed. However these Editions aren’t simply product bulletins. They function each roadmap and inventive assertion.
Again in December, we explored the Winter ’25 Version, which targeted on refining the core. With over 150+ updates and a playfully minimalist interface, it was a celebration of the work that always goes unnoticed—efficiency, reliability, and seamless workflows. “Boring,” however deliberately so, and surprisingly pleasant.
The brand new Summer time ’25 Version takes a special method. This time, the highlight is on design: expressive, visible, and accessible to everybody. On the heart of it’s Horizon, a brand-new first-party theme that reimagines what it means to construct a storefront on Shopify.
Horizon affords retailers whole inventive management with out technical obstacles. It combines a modular design system with AI-assisted customization, giving anybody the facility to create a elegant, high-performing retailer in just some clicks.
To grasp how this theme got here to life—and why Shopify sees it as such a turning level—we had the prospect to talk with Vanessa Lee, Shopify’s Vice President of Product. What emerged was a transparent image of the place retailer design is heading: extra versatile, extra intuitive, and extra creatively empowering than ever earlier than.
“Design has by no means mattered extra,” Lee informed us. “Nice design isn’t nearly how issues look—it’s the way you inform your story and construct lasting model loyalty. Horizon democratizes superior design capabilities so anybody can construct a retailer.”
A Theme That Feels Like a Design System
Horizon isn’t a single template. It’s a basis for a household of 10 thoughtfully designed presets, every able to be tailor-made to a model’s distinctive persona. What makes Horizon stand out isn’t just the aesthetics however the construction that powers it.
Constructed on Shopify’s new Theme Blocks, Horizon is the primary public theme to completely embrace this modular method. Blocks could be grouped, repositioned, and organized freely alongside each vertical and horizontal axes. All of this occurs inside a visible editor, no code required.
“The most important frustration was the hole between intention and implementation,” Lee explains. “Retailers had clear visions however typically needed to compromise resulting from technical complexity. Horizon modifications that by providing true design freedom—no code required.”
AI as a Artistic Accomplice
AI has change into an everyday presence in inventive instruments, however Shopify has taken a extra collaborative method. Horizon’s AI options are designed to help creativity, not take it over. They assist with format strategies, content material era, and even the creation of customized theme blocks primarily based on pure language prompts.
Describe one thing so simple as “a banner with textual content and typing animation,” and Horizon can generate a purposeful block to match your imaginative and prescient. It’s also possible to share an inspirational picture, and the system will create matching format components or content material.
What’s necessary is that retailers retain full editorial management.
“AI ought to improve human creativity,” Lee says. “Our instruments are collaborative—you keep in management. Whether or not you’re modifying a product description or producing a format, it’s at all times your voice guiding the end result.”
This mindset is mirrored in instruments like AI Block Technology and Sidekick, Shopify’s AI assistant that helps retailers form messaging, refine format, and produce content material concepts to life with out friction.
UX Shifts That Change the Recreation
Alongside its bigger improvements, Horizon additionally delivers a collection of small however extremely impactful enhancements to the shop modifying expertise:
- Copy and Paste for Theme Blocks permits retailers to reuse blocks throughout totally different sections, saving effort and time.
- Block Previews within the Picker let customers see what a block will appear to be earlier than including it, lowering trial and error.
- Drag and Drop Performance now consists of full block teams, nested elements, and intuitive repositioning, with settings preserved mechanically.
These updates could seem modest, however they aim the precise sorts of ache factors that decelerate design workflows.
“We pay shut consideration to small moments that add as much as huge frustrations,” Lee says. “Options like copy/paste or previews appear small—however they rework how retailers work.”
Constructed with the Group
Horizon just isn’t a top-down product. It was formed via collaboration with each retailers and builders over the previous 12 months. In response to Lee, the suggestions was clear and constant. Everybody wished extra flexibility, however not at the price of simplicity.
“Each retailers and builders need flexibility with out complexity,” Lee recollects. “That formed Theme Blocks—and Horizon wouldn’t exist with out that ongoing dialogue.”
The result’s a system that feels each refined and intuitive. Builders can work with construction and management, whereas retailers can categorical their model with readability and ease.
Extra Than a Theme, a Sign
Every Shopify Version carries a message. The Winter launch was about stability, efficiency, and quiet confidence. This Summer time’s Version speaks to one thing extra expressive. It’s about unlocking design as a type of commerce technique.
Horizon sits on the coronary heart of that shift. But it surely’s only one a part of a broader push throughout Shopify. The Version additionally consists of updates to Sidekick, the Store app, POS, funds, and extra—every designed to take away obstacles and help higher brand-building.
“We’re evolving from being a commerce platform to being a inventive accomplice,” Lee says. “With Horizon, we’re serving to retailers flip their concepts into actuality—with out the tech getting in the best way.”
Trying forward, Shopify sees monumental alternative in utilizing AI not only for retailer creation, however for proactive optimization, personalization, and steering that adapts to every service provider’s wants.
“Probably the most thrilling breakthroughs occur the place AI and human creativity meet,” Lee says. “We’ve solely scratched the floor—and that’s extremely motivating.”
Remaining Ideas
Horizon isn’t only a new Shopify theme. It’s a brand new baseline for what inventive freedom ought to really feel like in commerce. It invitations anybody—no matter technical ability—to construct a retailer that feels uniquely theirs.
For individuals who’ve felt boxed in by inflexible templates, or overwhelmed by the necessity to code, Horizon affords one thing totally different. It removes the friction, retains the facility, and brings the enjoyment again into constructing for the online.
Discover all the pieces new within the Shopify Summer time ’25 Version.
