Aide can cancel, refund and change orders in chat

Aide now handles the most common order requests itself. Once a shopper proves the order is theirs, Aide can cancel it, refund it, change the shipping address, remove an item that hasn't shipped, or leave a note on it, when the shopper asks for it or says yes to Aide's offer.

How it behaves

A shopper asks about an order without being signed in: Aide asks for the order number and the email used at checkout. Both must match the same order in your store before Aide shares anything about it or offers to change it.
The details don't match: Aide says so without revealing whether the order or the email exists. After five wrong attempts in a conversation, Aide stops trying and hands the conversation to your team.
The shopper asks for a change and gives every detail (added 2026-10-18): Aide makes it in the same reply instead of asking them to confirm what they just said. "Please change the street on #1001 to 2 Elgin St" changes the address at once, and the reply says what was done. Your refund limits, the topic's human in the loop setting and the actions you turned off apply exactly as before, and a draft written for your team to send never makes a change.
Changing part of an address (added 2026-10-18): Aide sees the order's current shipping address, so a new street keeps the city, postal code, country, name and phone already on the order.
Aide offers an action when it would have to fill in a detail the shopper didn't give, choose between orders or items, or when the action is its own suggestion: it describes exactly what it will do (for example "cancel order #1001 and refund your payment") and waits for the shopper to confirm. If the shopper moves on without saying yes, the offer lapses and nothing changes in your store.
The shopper confirms: Aide makes the change in Shopify and tells the shopper what happened. If Shopify refuses, Aide says so honestly and doesn't claim it worked.
Aide has to ask again before offering: when Aide's first answer needs another look, its follow-up question still carries the offer, so the shopper's "yes" goes through instead of the conversation being handed to your team. If a "yes" arrives with nothing waiting on it, Aide restates exactly what it will do and asks once more.
The conversation's topic is set to human in the loop: the confirmed action goes to your team for approval instead of running, and Aide tells the shopper a teammate will review it.
Later in the conversation: Aide remembers the order actions it ran or sent for approval earlier in the chat, and whether your team approved or declined them. A shopper who says "thanks" or asks for news gets an accurate answer instead of being handed to your team. A teammate's reason for declining stays internal.
Any teammate can approve: Approve and Reject show on the order for every teammate. A refund or replacement above your approval threshold still needs an Owner or Admin; Agents see why.
Your team hears about it: a new "Order action needs approval" notification goes to the teammates who can approve the action (the conversation's team, or everyone when there is none), never to the teammate who asked. It is on in the app and by email outside working hours by default, and can be changed in Settings > Notifications.
Refunds wait for your team by default: every refund Aide offers, including the refund that comes with a cancellation, goes to a teammate for approval until you raise Aide's refund limit. There are three limits: an amount per refund (0 by default, so nothing refunds on its own), a share of the order total (off by default), and a total for Aide's refunds over the last 24 hours (250 by default). A refund above any of them waits for approval, whatever the topic's setting.
Removing an item: Aide only removes items that haven't shipped, and refunds what the shopper overpaid.
Your team sees everything: every action Aide offers, runs or sends for approval shows in the order's action history marked as done by Aide, and in the conversation timeline.

Also in this change

Settings > Helpdesk > Statuses has a new "Aide order actions in chat" section: turn each action on or off, and set Aide's refund limits.
An action requested by a teammate who has since left your workspace no longer shows as Aide's.
A reply that is retried after its change already ran reports that change instead of making it again, so a shopper is never refunded or cancelled twice for one message (added 2026-10-18).

For developers

Order actions gain requestedByAide and two statuses: offered (Aide offered it, waiting for the shopper) and expired (the shopper didn't confirm).
Inbox settings gain aiOrderActions (on/off per action: cancel, refund, address, note, remove_item), aiRefundCap, aiRefundMaxPercent and aiRefundDailyLimit (null turns a limit off).
POST /v1/conversations/:id/orders/:orderId/remove_item accepts refund: true to refund what the removal leaves overpaid.
POST /v1/order-actions/:id/approve and /reject accept any member who can act on orders; above the refund approval threshold they still return 403 for Agents.
Notification preferences gain the approval_requested event.

All changes