The Backlog
Thoughts and insights from the 40rty garage
Newsletter April 2026: High-agency Shopify skills & Agentic Commerce Revenue Is Real
66 open-source Shopify Admin Skills, Adobe's 393% AI traffic growth, the Shopify × OpenAI playbook, and our new Agentic Commerce Analytics.
E-commerce Killed the Salesperson. AI Is Bringing Them Back.
The human shopper is starting to delegate. AI agents are doing the browsing, comparing, and deciding. Here's what that means for merchants.
Newsletter March 2026: The Product Catalog is now your AI shelf
ChatGPT shopping is live. Here's what Shopify's agentic storefront rollout means for your Product Catalog and sales channel.
The New Zero: How to Win When Every Catalog is AI Connected
When every store goes AI-ready, connection becomes table stakes. Here's how to actually get picked by the agent.
Newsletter February 2026: A playbook to win in Agentic Commerce in the next 90 days
Agentic Commerce is live on ChatGPT and Gemini. Here's your 90-day operator playbook to go from listed to chosen.
The Discipline of Rejection: Winning AI Trust by Saying "No"
AI agents are risk-averse. Telling them who your product is not for may be your strongest competitive move.
Newsletter Mid January 2026: Agentic Storefronts rollout
On January 26, Shopify flipped the switch. Here's the practical operator guide to what changed and what to do this week.
Newsletter January 2026: Global Catalog and Prompt Libraries
40rty got early access to Shopify's Agents Marketplace Catalog — and shipped Prompt Libraries in direct response to what operators were asking.
UCP: the boring-sounding protocol that could quietly change how people buy online
A new open standard lets AI agents find, compare, and buy products without ever loading your website. Here's what that means for brands.