The Globe and Mail reports in its Saturday edition that Shopify is a Canadian stock getting battered over fears of disruption from artificial intelligence. The Globe's David Berman writes that these fears might be misplaced. Within the blue-chip S&P/TSX 60 Index, the five biggest laggards so far in 2026 all bear the scars of an AI drubbing, as investors envision chatbots displacing current software. Shopify, Constellation, Open Text, Thomson Reuters and CGI are down by an average of 24 per cent each this year. For Shopify, which helps small and medium-sized merchants sell on-line with a broad suite of products and services, the threat from AI may appear large: If chatbots can lead consumers directly to merchants, Shopify could be sidelined. Shopify believes that AI technology will drive deeper on-line commercial activity for merchants as shoppers -- armed with chatbots such as ChatGPT or Gemini -- find their way to Shopify-powered storefronts. Shopify is encouraging this crossover with chatbots. In January, the company did a deal with Google to smooth out the entire on-line shopping experience. Wedbush analyst Dan Ives said the AI threat to software is one of several wrong-headed tech trades over the past 25 years.