Takeaway: merchants already using Shopify Knowledge Base should check not only whether information moved, but also what is already public.
On October 28, Shopify introduced a new Knowledge Base page under Sales channels → Agentic as part of Fall ’26 Edition. It manages store facts for AI assistant answers, such as return and shipping terms.
What happens to the legacy knowledge base
According to Shopify’s migration documentation, if the old app contains 1,000 facts or fewer, custom overrides and additional facts are automatically transferred and published. Above that threshold, merchants must add this information manually before the old app is deprecated on January 15, 2027. The old app can no longer be installed.
Not clicking a new publish button therefore does not mean migrated information remains a draft.
Facts do not all start with the same status
Shopify’s new help page distinguishes storefront-scanned facts, which initially remain unpublished, from admin-linked facts such as policies and contact details: Shopify publishes those when it creates them. Published information is publicly accessible through Storefront MCP.
The new knowledge base has a total limit of 1,000 facts, including generated and additional facts. Moving a large collection therefore calls for selection rather than indiscriminate copying.
What a merchant should do
- Compare custom information in the old app with the new section and check its publication status.
- Compare published return terms, shipping destinations and contacts against current store rules. Do not add internal instructions or confidential information.
- For a large knowledge base, assign an owner for manual migration and set an internal deadline before January 15.
- Keep a list of reviewed facts and the review date to help spot discrepancies after the next policy change.
This is an editorial checking procedure, not a Shopify requirement or a report of our own test. A useful next step is source-change control for a knowledge base.
Availability and limits
The check requires the store owner or a staff member with appropriate permissions. Custom storefronts and the Agentic plan support additional facts only. We have not tested this in a live merchant account or verified identical availability across countries and configurations. Publishing facts does not guarantee correct answers from every third-party AI assistant.
The announcement date is October 28, 2026; sources were checked on October 29. We have not established when any particular store was migrated.
Author: Nadali. Prepared with AI assistance. The cover is a reused AI illustration, not a Shopify interface or a photograph of the event.
