Shopify shareholders shoot down proposal to create AI policy

Jed Ellerbroek, portfolio manager at Argent Capital Management, joins BNN Bloomberg to discuss the outlook on the markets.

Shopify Inc. shareholders have voted against the company creating an artificial intelligence policy.

The idea was shot down at the Ottawa-based tech company’s annual general meeting, where just shy of 14 per cent of shareholders in attendance voted in favour of developing a policy.

The proposal was put forward by the Shareholder Association for Research and Education on behalf of the United Church of Canada’s pension plan, which is a Shopify investor.

They wanted Shopify to create a policy because they say generative AI systems may negatively impact human rights and agentic AI can cause misinformation, manipulation and erroneous automated transactions.

While they were hoping the proposal would pass, SHARE said Monday it would consider garnering even 15 per cent of the vote a “substantial” step in the push to get more AI oversight.

• Latest updates on artificial intelligence news here

They wanted Shopify to create a policy because they say generative AI systems may negatively impact human rights and agentic AI can cause misinformation, manipulation and erroneous automated transactions.

Shopify’s board urged shareholders not to adopt the policy.

It didn’t speak to its reasoning at Tuesday’s meeting but in materials filed in advance for shareholders, it called the proposal “entirely dissonant from how Shopify builds, ships, and governs technology”.

“AI is not a risk we manage from a distance. It is core to what we build and how we serve merchants,” the company said in its response to the proposal.

“As with any transformative technology, we understand AI deeply and build responsibly — grounded in real-world use, not a policy document detached from our practices.”

The board said Shopify also doesn’t need the policy because it already has contracts and terms of service with clear guardrails around AI.

Dolapo Makinde, a shareholder advocay specialist at SHARE who introduced the proposal Tuesday, said those contracts and terms are not enough.

“Mention of those measures alone does not provide transparency into the company’s AI risk management and governance controls, which limits shareholders’ ability to assess whether Shopify is using AI responsibly in alignment with internationally recognized standards,” she said.

“Additionally, publicly available policies such as Shopify’s code of conduct do not reflect commitment to responsive use of AI.”

AI is so prevalent at Shopify that last year CEO Tobi Lutke made it a “fundamental expectation” for staff, who now use it for coding, product development and performance reviews. Even among Shopify’s merchants, the technology is rampant with many adopting the company’s AI tools to tweak their operations.

This isn’t the first time a Canadian company has faced an AI-focused push from shareholders, nor the first time such a proposal has failed.

Le mouvement d’éducation et de défense des actionnaires took aim at 14 companies, including Canada’s biggest banks, retailer Dollarama Inc. and telecom giant BCE Inc., last year.

The Quebec investor rights group wanted the companies to sign a voluntary code of conduct developed by the federal government but eventually withdrew the proposal facing five of the businesses because it was pleased with how conversations were progressing.

In the nine other instances, the vote went forward but the proposal ultimately failed. The proposal garnered as much as 17.4 per cent support at TD Bank but as little as 3.68 per cent at engineering firm AtkinsRéalis Group Inc.

Around the same time, two funds at the BC General Employees’ Union tried to get Thomson Reuters Corp. to amend its AI policy to meet the United Nations human rights principles. That proposal received 4.87 per cent support from the software firm’s shareholders.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published June 16, 2026.

Tara Deschamps, The Canadian Press

CTV News, BNN Bloomberg and CP24 are owned by Bell Media, which is a division of BCE.