Shopify started drafting image alt text with AI inside the product media editor for eligible merchants.
Shopify will draft alt text for product shots. Shops that left every image blank finally have a faster starting point. Shops that publish the model’s guesses unchanged will invent fabrics they do not sell. The feature is a draft button, not a truth serum.
How to use the drafts
Generate, then rewrite with the real material, color, and product name. Screen readers and image search both prefer the actual item over a poetic guess. If the model says “silk” and you sell polyester, that error becomes an accessibility lie and a customer expectation problem.
Eligibility still varies by plan and region. If you do not see the control, check Shopify’s rollout notes before you assume the store is broken.
Make it a habit, not a one-off
Add alt text review to the same checklist as price and inventory. Bulk-generate on old catalogs only if someone humans the queue. Accessibility debt does not vanish because a button appeared.
Shopify lowered the activation energy. Merchants still owe readers an honest description of what is in the frame. That is the entire job of alt text, AI or not.
Catalog clean-up sprint
Schedule a week where assistants generate drafts and humans approve one hundred SKUs a day with a shared style guide: product type first, then color, then material, no marketing fluff. Measure how often the model invents attributes. That error rate tells you whether to keep the button for new uploads only. Shopify gave merchants speed. A style guide turns speed into accessibility instead of fiction.
Multilingual catalogs
If you sell in multiple languages, do not assume an English draft translates cleanly. Generate per storefront language and have a native speaker spot-check materials and size words. Bad alt text in a second language creates the same accessibility debt with extra customer confusion. Shopify’s draft button is English-centric in many minds even when locales exist—verify, do not assume.