Shopify’s CRO on Scaling Simplicity: Bobby Morrison on AI Search, Unified Commerce & 10 Tn Data Calls

Guest: Bobby Morrison — Chief Revenue Officer, Shopify  
Host: Alex, Founder of The Retail Podcast & RetailNews.AI

Shopify CRO Bobby Morrison explains why making the complex simple—at Black‑Friday scale—beats piling complexity onto merchants. We unpack AI‑powered search, Sidekick, the rise of wholesale & retail POS on Shopify, and the partner ecosystem that’s moving 42 brands to the platform for every one leaving.

What we cover
- 00:00 Complexity vs. simplicity: 10 trn data queries, 1.1 trn edge requests  
- 02:17 The modern Shopify stack (e‑com, wholesale, retail POS)  
- 07:05 AI‑driven search and why affiliates are back  
- 10:31 Perplexity, edge commerce & the future of discovery  
- 12:20 From entrepreneur DNA to 50 %+ enterprise revenue  
- 15:09 Cutting “keep‑the‑lights‑on” teams by 70 % after migrating  
- 18:36 Partner ecosystems: agencies → GSIs → SIs  
- 21:04 Sidekick AI: your built‑in growth analyst  
- 23:30 Inside founder‑led culture at scale  
- 27:49 Global retail tour & where to meet Bobby next  

Links & resources
- Shopify Sidekick ➜ https://www.shopify.com/sidekick  
- Partner program overview ➜ https://www.shopify.com/partners  
- Black Friday/Cyber Monday data 2024 ➜ https://news.shopify.com/bfcm-2024  
- Join our newsletter for weekly retail tech briefings ➜ https://retailnews.ai  

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