In an era where 51% of Gen Z begins their shopping journey on AI platforms, luxury retailers face an unprecedented challenge: how to maintain the intimacy and exclusivity of premium commerce while meeting customers wherever they are—including inside AI conversations. EPAM and Shopify have formed a strategic partnership to solve this challenge, pioneering agentic AI solutions that empower premium brands to deliver hyper-personalized, emotionally resonant commerce experiences.
The Partnership Vision: Unified Commerce for the AI Era
EPAM and Shopify recognized early that the future of premium commerce would be defined by relationships—not transactions. Together, they're building solutions that blend human service, physical environments, and intelligent digital capabilities into unified client experiences.
The partnership leverages Shopify's strategic advantage of building a unified platform from day one. This architectural foundation proves particularly valuable today as brands race to become AI-ready. EPAM brings the expertise to transform this foundation into sophisticated, AI-native experiences that luxury brands demand.
How EPAM and Shopify Work Together
The partnership combines Shopify's AI-ready commerce platform with EPAM's deep expertise in digital transformation, AI-native engineering and luxury retail. Together, they deliver:
Composable Architecture Implementation
EPAM leverages Shopify's API-first platform to assemble modular, best-of-breed services—content supply, product experience, and personalization technology—into flexible, agentic-ready architectures. This ensures brands can rapidly adapt without sacrificing the elegance that defines luxury.
AI-Native Experience Design
The partnership has developed pioneering applications including an AI-native concierge experience, which provides white-glove service to high-net-worth clientele using digital channels. The concierge conversationally helps clients to discover, compare, try-on virtually, and set in-store appointments to continue their journey.
These innovations help pave the way for a future where what luxury clients seek is far removed from the past, expecting experiences like:
- Provide complete agency for AI to act on their behalf. Helping their client to discover new products, check stock, find similar items, and return if necessary.
- Employ AI Personal Stylists that detect client preferences and body metrics, facilitating seamless handoffs between digital recommendations and in-store service
- Experience Smart Fitting Rooms with immersive environments that capture shareable content while making intelligent pairing suggestions
- Engage in AI Co-Creation Services where digital artists collaborate with customers to design bespoke pieces, available exclusively to top-tier clients
Unified Data Strategy
EPAM implements unified data architectures with Shopify as the central tenet of the commerce stack, bridging marketing and loyalty systems to enable consistent personalization. Every piece of data becomes structured, machine-readable, and AI-ready—essential for the agentic commerce era.
Exclusive Capabilities: What Sets This Partnership Apart
Native AI Commerce Integration
Through Shopify and EPAM's partnerships with Google and OpenAI, they together help luxury brands to develop agentic-ready architectures which follow UCP and ACP standards enabling clients to engage and transact directly through Gemini and ChatGPT. Clients can experience the brand, whilst orders flow directly to admin and merchants remain the merchant of record—all while maintaining the premium aspect.
One Checkout Everywhere
EPAM enables luxury brands to meet their clients where they are, on any channel. Using Shopify’s unified checkout platform, consistent checkout experiences can be delivered on any channel; web, mobile app, AI chat or in-store. This strategic decision means luxury brands can focus on experience rather than infrastructure.
Content Generation at Scale
Leveraging Shopify's AI capabilities, EPAM enables brands to generate hundreds of product descriptions while maintaining perfect brand voice and test its effectiveness against synthetic personas. Capabilities which are essential for luxury retailers managing extensive catalogs across multiple markets.
The Technical Foundation: Why EPAM Chose Shopify
EPAM utilizes Shopify as its platform partner for these solutions for several strategic reasons:
Unified Architecture
Shopify's unified platform provides the consistency luxury brands require. Every piece of data has an API endpoint, creating the structured, machine-readable feeds that AI demands.
Superior Performance
Shopify's checkout converts 36% higher than competitors—crucial for luxury brands where every interaction matters. The platform continues evolving to embed beautifully into AI experiences while maintaining brand integrity.
Future-Ready Infrastructure
Shopify's early architectural decisions position it perfectly for agentic commerce, meaning the focus can be on building sophisticated experiences that differentiate luxury brands.
Looking Forward: The Future of Premium Commerce
EPAM and Shopify are building the infrastructure for a future where customers become the channel. As Ward De Kruiff, VP Digital Innovation at EPAM, explains: "The future belongs to luxury brands that harmonize heritage with modernity."
Together, they're enabling:
- Fluid Discovery across traditional storefronts and zero-UI experiences
- Predictive Personalization that anticipates needs before they're expressed
- Emotional Resonance at scale, maintaining intimacy across millions of interactions
- Trust and Security in agent-mediated transactions
The Partnership Advantage
EPAM and Shopify offer luxury brands a unique combination:
From EPAM:
- Deep expertise in luxury retail and digital transformation
- Proven ability to implement complex, AI-native architectures
- Understanding of how to preserve brand exclusivity at scale
- Global delivery capabilities for international brands
From Shopify:
- AI-ready, unified commerce platform
- Native integrations with leading AI platforms
- API-first architecture built for the future
- Performance that converts luxury browsers into buyers
Together, they empower brands to thrive in a world where personalization is limitless, commerce is boundaryless, and loyalty is earned through trust and predictive delight.
Partner with EPAM and Shopify
AI commerce isn't coming—it's here. The question is whether luxury brands will capture the opportunity or watch competitors take their customers. EPAM and Shopify provide the expertise, technology, and vision to ensure premium brands don't just adapt to the AI era—they lead it.
For luxury retailers ready to embrace the relationship era of premium commerce, the EPAM and Shopify partnership offers a proven path forward. One where technology doesn't replace the human touch—it enhances it, creating experiences worthy of the world's most discerning customers.
Discover how EPAM and Shopify can transform your premium commerce experience, visit our partner page.
The future of luxury retail is being written now.
