ShopX 2026 Buildathon — Morning you hear it, afternoon you build it

The shape of the day

One room, two energies.

The morning proves AI-native ecommerce is real, with operators, founders and investors on stage. The afternoon makes you build one live. You don't leave with notes, you leave with a running artifact.

09:00 – 12:15 · Inspire

Morning — keynotes + panels

1–2 hero speakers set the operating model, then curated panels on the three things actually moving in 2026: agentic commerce & AEO, AI creative that converts, and the BFCM retrospective. Each panel seeds an afternoon build track.

13:15 – 18:30 · Build

Afternoon — the Buildathon

Lunch matches you into teams by track. The room re-arranges from theater to build-pods. Four sprints, mentors on hand, credits + starter repos ready. Then a live Demo Expo and judging.

Morning · Inspire

Hero speakers + panel discussions

No vague AI hype. Every morning slot is an operator with data and scars, and each one foreshadows an afternoon build track. You walk into the Buildathon already knowing what to build.

09:45 · HERO KEYNOTE

The AI-native operating model

Operator, a scaled DTC brand

How AI actually moved the needle across the whole funnel — build, buy, create, operate. The frame for the entire day. → feeds every track

09:30 · OPENING

State of AI × Ecom 2026 + track reveal

Chris Koh · GemPages

2025 CRO Day → 2026 Build Day. The 4 build tracks are revealed here so you can start forming a team over coffee.

PANEL · 10:30

Agentic commerce & AEO

AI-shopping platform founders

"Get your store bought by AI agents." Shopify UCP on-by-default, Storefront MCP, structured data. → Track 3

PANEL · 10:30

What actually converts with AI

Performance-creative operators

Not AI slop — judgment. Now everyone has the same gen tools, the edge is knowing what sells. → Track 2

PANEL · 11:30

BFCM 2025 retro × 2026 playbook

BFCM-heavy operators

The signature ShopX panel — real numbers, who won, who lost, and the 10-week countdown to BFCM 2026.

Panel bench is deep & international (75+ verified candidates across US / EU / India / Korea / Japan / SEA / Vietnam). Speakers not on a panel become afternoon mentors & judges — nobody who flies in sits idle.

12:15 – 13:15 · The transformation

Then the room flips.

Over lunch, the space physically changes. Theater rows facing a stage become clustered build-pods — one zone per track. You eat at a table matched to the track you picked; by 13:15 you're sitting with your team, credits in hand.

☀️ Morning — Theater

Rows facing the stage · all eyes forward · panels + keynotes

→

🛠️ Afternoon — Build pods

Clustered tables · 1 zone per track · mentors roam · power + wifi per pod

🏪 LANDING GEN

🎬 CREATIVE

👕 POD STUDIO

🤖 HERMES

🍽️ Matched lunch

Tables grouped by chosen track — you meet your team while you eat. No team? Matchmaking host at each zone.

🎟️ Voucher packet

Per team: Claude Code + Shopify dev-store + GemPages + Arcads credit codes, wifi creds, starter-repo link, mentor Slack.

⚡ Pod setup

1 power outlet / 2 people, dedicated "ShopX-Build" wifi SSID, track sign overhead, whiteboard per cluster.

Afternoon · Build

Pick a track. Ship it by 5:30.

Every track is powered by a sponsor tool, with credits, a mentor and its own prize. You build one real thing and demo it live.

🏪

Landing Page Generation

A live store, plus a landing page for every customer avatar, built and CRO-tuned by AI.

Prompt a niche and product
AI generates the store and an LP per avatar
Match each ad to its page, then publish live

Ship a live store plus avatar-matched LPs. Stack GemPages AI, Shopify.

🎬

Creative Generation

The biggest track. Turn one product into UGC videos, advertorials, 3D and avatar ads at scale.

Drop in a product URL, pick a format
AI writes the hooks and renders the creative
Assemble, QA, export a batch ready for ads

Ship 20+ assets across formats. Stack MakeUGC, Claude Code, HeyGen.

👕

POD Studio

AI designs a product, print-on-demand makes it, it goes live.

AI generates a product design for a niche
Push it through a POD workflow and mockup
List it on Shopify with AI copy

Ship an AI-designed POD product, live. Winners get produced for real by Pengu.

🤖

Hermes Agent

Nous Research's open-source agent, self-hosted, that learns skills to run your store.

Self-host Hermes on a Hostinger VPS
Teach it a Shopify skill through MCP
Command it from WhatsApp or Telegram

Ship a self-hosted agent running a real Shopify skill. Stack Hermes Agent, Shopify MCP, Hostinger VPS.

🧩

AI App Sprint

Prototype an AI feature for Shopify: bundles, upsell, automation.

Pick a store job worth automating
Build the AI feature on a sponsor app plus Claude Code
Run it against a live store

Ship a working AI app feature. Stack Easify, Claude Code, Shopify. More sponsor tracks land here soon.

Inside the AI App Sprint

A menu of 30+ AI workflows to build

Pick a workflow, get a starter repo and a sponsor tool. Here is a taste of what teams can ship in an afternoon.

Product copy

Copy at Scale

On-brand titles and descriptions for a whole catalog.

Shopify Magic

SEO · AEO

Schema + llms.txt

Make every page citable by ChatGPT and Perplexity.

Webrex

Support

WISMO Agent

An AI agent that answers order and returns questions.

Gorgias

Reviews · UGC

Review to Ad Copy

Turn fresh 5-star reviews into ready ad hooks.

Judge.me + n8n

Upsell

Dynamic Bundles

AI cart and post-purchase offers per shopper.

Rebuy

Ad creative

Ad Factory

Auto-generate and launch Meta and Google variants.

AdScale

Translation

One-Click Localize

A global store in three languages in minutes.

Weglot

Sourcing

Winning-Product Radar

Surface trending products and matching suppliers.

Dropship.io

Personalization

AI Merchandiser

Reorder collections by live conversion signals.

Nosto

Conversational

WhatsApp Sell Agent

A bot that recommends and closes the sale on chat.

QuickReply

Zero-party

Recommendation Quiz

A quiz that recommends and captures preferences.

Octane AI

Automation

Vibe-Coded Ops Tool

Build any internal tool in Claude Code plus MCP.

Claude Code

Landing · most requested

Avatar-Matched LP Set

One landing page per customer avatar, matched to each ad.

GemPages

Ad research

Ad-Spy to TikTok

Analyze winning ads, generate on-brand variants for TikTok.

Apify + Arcads

Creative

Automated Advertorial

Turn a product into a full advertorial ready to run.

Claude + MakeUGC

Upsell · bundles

AI Bundle Builder

Rapi AI builds the optimal bundles, shown on a drag-and-drop GemPages bundle page.

Rapi + GemPages

Plus 20 more, from returns and fraud rules to creator outreach, ad-spy systems and agency lead-gen.

What you build with

The tech stack

Credits for the paid tools are provided. Bring a laptop, we bring the stack.

AI brain

Claude Code

Claude Skills

MCP

Hermes Agent

Storefront

GemPages AI

Shopify

Storefront MCP

Creative + video

MakeUGC

Arcads

HeyGen

Higgsfield

FAL

ElevenLabs

Nano Banana

Infra + hosting

Hostinger VPS

Vercel

Data + automation

Apify

n8n

Print on demand

Pengu Studio

Printful / Printify

Shopify AI apps

Klaviyo

Gorgias

Yotpo

Rebuy

Recharge

Triple Whale

Judge.me

Loop

Nosto

Tidio

Rapi Bundles

Kaching+ more

For Shopify apps & sponsors

Your app is the tool teams build on

Every sprint runs on a Shopify app. Sponsor one and 200+ operators and agencies build on your API live, then demo it on stage. Three ways to join.

Track sponsor

Own a build track

Teams build on your app all afternoon. Credits, two mentors, a track prize, a judge seat and a demo slot.

Sprint anchor

Power one sprint

Your app anchors one workflow in the AI App Sprint menu. Credits, a mentor and a micro-prize.

Demo wall

Show your AI

Demo your AI feature at the morning sponsor wall, in front of the full room.

APPS ALREADY SHIPPING AI THAT FIT A SPRINT

Email · agentic

Klaviyo

Composer and Customer Agent. Teams build a win-back flow the agent writes itself.

Lifecycle sprint

Analytics · agentic

Triple Whale

Moby 2 AI operator. Teams build an agent that forecasts SKUs and drafts campaigns.

Ask-your-data sprint

Support · agentic

Gorgias

AI Agent 2.0. Teams build a support agent that resolves WISMO and refunds end to end.

Support track

Subscriptions

Recharge

AI subscriber agents over SMS. Teams build a skip and swap concierge.

Subscription sprint

Upsell

Rebuy

AI Smart Cart. Teams build real-time affinity upsells at checkout.

Bundles sprint

Reviews · UGC

Yotpo

AI review summaries and auto-tagged UGC. Teams build a shoppable UGC widget.

Reviews sprint

Power a track with your app →

Run of show · 17.09.2026