Shopify switches apps back to native with AI tools

Shopify is moving its mobile apps from React Native back to native development in Swift and Kotlin, saying improved large language model tools have changed the economics of building the same features for two mobile platforms.

The shift reverses a strategy adopted in 2020, when Shopify standardised on React Native to reduce duplicated work across iOS and Android, widen the pool of engineers who could contribute to mobile products, and avoid spending heavily on feature parity between separate codebases.

That approach delivered those benefits for several years. It also required ongoing work on performance, core framework areas, updates and dependencies, but those trade-offs remained acceptable while the savings from shared implementation outweighed the costs.

The reassessment followed years of internal use of AI coding tools. Shopify said it has used large language models in software development since 2021, first for feature work, bug fixes and code review, and later for more complex engineering tasks.

Engineers then rebuilt core parts of its largest apps in Swift and Kotlin with AI assistance to test whether native development still carried a significant penalty. According to Shopify, those trials showed agents could implement a feature on one platform by using the other as a reference, help developers contribute outside their main speciality, and reduce the effort needed to keep iOS and Android versions aligned.

Native development still means maintaining two codebases. Shopify argues that AI systems now handle enough of the implementation, translation, testing and review process that duplicated effort is no longer the main deciding factor.

App rebuilds

For its main apps, Shopify is opting for full rebuilds rather than gradually replacing parts of existing products. Earlier migrations to React Native often used a brownfield model, but the company concluded that rebuilding from scratch would be faster and would let teams redesign the apps without previous constraints.

The first product to move was Shop, its consumer shopping app. Shopify said the team went from proof of concept to a fully rebuilt native app published in app stores in 12 weeks with AI assistance.

Work is also under way on the main Shopify app, which the company described as its biggest mobile product, with more than 300 screens, as well as widgets, an Apple Watch app, complications and Siri Shortcuts. The remaining apps, including Point of Sale and Inbox, are also due to move to native development.

The migration affects software used by millions of merchants and buyers, making it one of the eCommerce group's more significant internal platform changes in recent years.

AI workflow

Shopify said it has built an internal system called Helix to manage the process. Rather than asking an AI model to convert a React Native screen directly into Swift or Kotlin in one pass, the tool breaks the work into small checkpoints that can be reviewed quickly.

Each stage must satisfy a set of tests, match the running app in visual review, pass two adversarial code reviews and receive human approval before the next stage begins. Feedback from each review is retained, which Shopify said allows the system to become more autonomous over time.

The company said this step-by-step method avoids a common problem with AI-generated software: large volumes of code that appear complete but are difficult to maintain or ship.

Mobile testing remains a bottleneck for AI-driven development, Shopify added. Agents can change code quickly, but testing often takes several minutes because they rely on screenshots, simulator control or the accessibility tree to understand an app's state and verify results.

To address that, Shopify said it is designing app architecture so business logic can run separately from the user interface and be accessed through a command line interface. That allows AI agents to inspect state, move through workflows and carry out actions without constantly relying on the simulator, cutting feedback loops from minutes to milliseconds in some cases.

Open-source plans

The move also has implications for React Native tools developed by Shopify and used more widely across the software community. The company plans to continue sponsoring React Native Skia through the end of 2026, after which William Candillon will continue work on it under a new name once he forks the repository. The original repository will then be archived.

FlashList, which Shopify said records about 2 million downloads a week, will continue to receive fixes for critical compatibility issues while the company discusses longer-term stewardship with other businesses.

Restyle will be archived, with maintenance continuing through the end of 2026 before support ends. Shopify said outside teams would be free to fork the project and that it would help with the handover if another maintainer took it on.

Shopify was careful to distinguish the strategic shift from a rejection of React Native itself. It said the framework had been the right choice when it adopted it, and that the change reflected improvements in AI-assisted development rather than a failure of the technology.

"Native is the right choice for Shopify now, but React Native was the right choice for Shopify in 2020," the company said.