Copilot Checkout: Shopify merchants are already enrolled. Here are the settings
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Short answer
Copilot Checkout, launched 8 January 2026, lets US shoppers buy inside Microsoft Copilot conversations. Shopify merchants are enrolled automatically: Shopify states direct checkout is activated by default for eligible stores and that there are no fees beyond standard payment processing. The toggle lives under Sales channels, then Agentic, then Microsoft Copilot. Bing indexation feeds the answers, which Bing's new AI Performance report now shows you directly.
What launched, and how Shopify stores got in
Microsoft announced Copilot Checkout on 8 January 2026 with PayPal, Shopify, Stripe and Etsy as launch partners: in-conversation purchasing on Copilot.com, expanding to Bing, MSN and Edge, US first. Microsoft's launch post states PayPal and Stripe merchants apply through a form while Shopify merchants are automatically enrolled with an opt-out, the sentence that makes this page necessary.
Shopify's help page fills in the merchant terms: purchasing in direct checkout is activated by default for eligible stores, there are no fees associated with selling in Microsoft Copilot's direct checkout beyond standard payment processing, and eligibility is the familiar set, US customers served, Catalog-eligible products, policies completed, supplemental terms accepted. You did not fill in a form because the agentic machinery was the form.
The settings, precisely
Sales channels, then Agentic, deactivate Allow Shopify to manage for me, open Microsoft Copilot. Two independent switches: Direct checkout, which controls in-chat purchasing while leaving discovery on, and Shopify Catalog access, which controls whether Copilot gets your product data at all. Off, on, or discovery-only are all real configurations, same grammar as every other channel.
Worth knowing before you decide: Microsoft's launch materials claim Copilot shopping journeys convert unusually well, and Shopify's own Q1 2026 data has AI-referred orders growing 13x year over year across channels. Small numbers today, the kind that embarrass people who turned things off in 2026 and forgot.
How Copilot decides what to show, and the report that proves it
Three data paths feed Copilot's shopping answers. Microsoft Merchant Center product feeds, which Microsoft says help inform organic Copilot results. Shopify Catalog, which Shopify states requires nothing from you for Copilot discovery. And the Bing web index, which grounds Copilot's answers about the open web, your pages included.
That last path stopped being a matter of inference in February 2026, when Bing Webmaster Tools shipped its AI Performance report in public preview: it shows how often your content is cited in Copilot and Bing AI summaries, including the grounding queries Copilot issued against the index to build answers. It is the first first-party receipt any AI surface has offered, and it makes the old advice concrete: verify your store in Bing Webmaster Tools, keep Bingbot unblocked, and let IndexNow push your changes, because this is the index where those minutes pay.
Brand Agents, the part after checkout
The same January announcement introduced Copilot Brand Agents: an AI assistant in your brand's voice, trained on your catalog, running on your own site, currently offered to Shopify merchants through the Microsoft Clarity integration with a waitlist. Microsoft quotes an early retailer seeing agent-assisted sessions convert at three times the rate, a vendor-quoted number, so weigh it accordingly.
Strategically it is the other half of the bet: Copilot Checkout brings the assistant to the shopper, Brand Agents bring an assistant to your store. Both run on the same catalog data, which by now is a sentence you could have written yourself.
Frequently asked questions
Do I pay Microsoft a commission on Copilot sales?
Shopify's help page states there are no fees associated with selling in Microsoft Copilot's direct checkout, only your standard payment processing fees. The order lands as a Shopify order.
How do I know if my store is actually live in Copilot?
Check the Microsoft Copilot row under Sales channels, then Agentic, for your enrollment state and its analytics. For the web-answer side, Bing Webmaster Tools' AI Performance report shows citations of your pages in Copilot directly.
Does blocking Bingbot affect Copilot?
Yes, doubly. Bing's index grounds Copilot's web answers, and the AI Performance report documents those grounding queries. Product data still flows through Catalog and Merchant Center, but your pages disappear from the answer layer, the half-presence problem again.
Is Copilot worth caring about next to ChatGPT?
It ships inside Windows, Edge and Microsoft 365, which is distribution no other assistant gets for free, and it is currently the least competed AI surface among merchants. Costing nothing to be present on, the expected value argument writes itself.
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