ACRIS’s SCD26 Recap

Our highlights from Shopware Community Day 2026: new storefront technologies, AI in the admin panel, improved performance and exciting ideas for the future of e-commerce.

Published on 20/07/2026

Shopware Community Day 2026 is over, and for us as a Shopware Premium Extension Partner, there was once again plenty to take in. Around 1,500 attendees gathered at the Confex in Cologne on 10 June, and the central question of the day ran through almost every session: How can retailers remain successful as AI agents increasingly become part of the customer journey? In this recap, we summarise our key impressions and highlights from the day.

Redesigned Page Builder and Storefront Components

Shopware is not only improving the user experience of Shopping Experiences in the administration area, but also overhauling the entire technical architecture of the storefront. Until now, the administration area and the storefront have used separate rendering engines. This can lead to differences between the preview and the final result—one of the most common pain points of all. The new concept addresses this issue directly. For us as plugin developers, this is an important step in the right direction and provides a strong foundation for the future of Shopware.

Fully Integrated AI in the Administration Area: Copilot

In the future, AI will provide support across numerous areas of the administration interface, and extensions will also be taken into account. Copilot is intended to do more than simply answer questions. It will be able to carry out specific tasks, such as creating complex promotion rules, assisting with product maintenance, or handling administrative work in the backend. We would find it particularly exciting if Copilot also had knowledge of store extensions and could recommend suitable solutions from the Shopware Store whenever certain functionality is missing.

Cache Optimizations

In addition to general performance improvements, extensions can now be made compatible with Shopware’s caching mechanism more easily. This significantly simplifies plugin development and provides our customers with greater stability and improved compatibility when several plugins are used simultaneously.

Shopware Nexus: Reduced Integration Effort

One topic that particularly caught our attention as a partner involved in numerous B2B projects was Shopware Nexus. According to Shopware, up to 52% of implementation effort is currently spent connecting systems rather than creating genuine differentiation. Nexus replaces fragile middleware solutions with reusable, event-driven workflows. Reducing backend effort ultimately means that more of the available budget can be invested in what customers actually see and experience.

Experience Studio: Research Preview

This is still a very new concept, but it offers an exciting glimpse into the future. Experience Studio is intended to enable merchants to create functional commerce frontends and story-driven shopping experiences using prompts. As AI agents become increasingly involved in product discovery, thoughtfully designed and emotionally engaging storefronts will become even more valuable. We also see exciting opportunities here for our own solutions.

Our Conclusion

Shopware is clearly evolving from a traditional commerce platform into a platform for commerce processes—with less operational effort and a stronger focus on creating genuine added value. This is a direction that we fully support. Another highlight was, of course, the after-show party with all of Shopware’s partners. It gave us another opportunity to speak with many familiar faces, meet new people, and bring the event to a relaxed and enjoyable close. We are already looking forward to next year!