Shopify AI Image Index · Edition 1 · measured 1 Oct 2026 to 2 Oct 2026

How visible are AI images in Europe's Shopify stores?

Created with AI

2,992 of 3,136 Shopify stores with the country domain of an EU member state, .eu or .ch were measured: whether an EU label appears in the code of the home page and product pages, and whether provenance evidence is readable on the images the store delivers.

Label signature found
0.1%
95% interval 0.0-0.3% · n = 2,992
Stores where an EU label appears in the delivered code of the home page or the first 3 product pages.
Stores with evidence
8.0%
7.1-9.0% · n = 2,982
Stores where provenance evidence is readable on at least one of up to 30 delivered image copies.
Copies with evidence
0.7%
0.5-0.8% · 87,705 copies
Share of all image copies read that carry readable evidence. Evidence in the original is often lost on the delivered copy.
Product images per store
4,100
Median · P25 1,100, P75 10,000 · n = 2,992
Distinct image files that labelling is about.
How to read the figures: A provenance marker that is found is evidence. A missing marker or a label that is not found says nothing about whether an image was created with AI or whether a store has to label anything.
By country domain

Results by country

A separate row only from 50 stores measured. All smaller country domains are grouped in the last row so that no figure can be traced back to a small group of stores.

Country domainStoresLabel signature foundStores with evidence on copies
Germany (.de) 755 0.3% 0.1-1.0% · n = 755 8.5% 6.7-10.7% · n = 751
France (.fr) 320 0.0% 0.0-1.2% · n = 320 8.8% 6.2-12.4% · n = 318
Italy (.it) 301 0.0% 0.0-1.3% · n = 301 9.6% 6.8-13.5% · n = 301
Netherlands (.nl) 288 0.4% 0.1-1.9% · n = 288 10.1% 7.1-14.1% · n = 287
Spain (.es) 149 0.0% 0.0-2.5% · n = 149 9.5% 5.7-15.3% · n = 148
Romania (.ro) 140 0.0% 0.0-2.7% · n = 140 14.3% 9.4-21.0% · n = 140
Poland (.pl) 135 0.0% 0.0-2.8% · n = 135 8.9% 5.2-14.9% · n = 135
Denmark (.dk) 99 0.0% 0.0-3.7% · n = 99 8.1% 4.2-15.1% · n = 99
Ireland (.ie) 82 0.0% 0.0-4.5% · n = 82 1.2% 0.2-6.6% · n = 82
Finland (.fi) 76 0.0% 0.0-4.8% · n = 76 4.0% 1.4-11.0% · n = 76
Sweden (.se) 76 0.0% 0.0-4.8% · n = 76 6.6% 2.8-14.5% · n = 76
Portugal (.pt) 61 0.0% 0.0-5.9% · n = 61 13.1% 6.8-23.8% · n = 61
Switzerland (.ch) 60 0.0% 0.0-6.0% · n = 60 1.7% 0.3-9.0% · n = 59
Other country domains .at, .be, .bg, .cy, .cz, .ee, .eu, .gr, .hr, .hu, .lt, .lu, .lv, .mt, .si, .sk 450 0.0% 0.0-0.9% · n = 450 3.6% 2.2-5.7% · n = 449

Stores: stores measured per row. Below each share are the 95% interval and n; for evidence, only stores with at least one image copy read count.

Method in brief

How it was measured

01

Which stores

Shopify stores from the Tranco list of the most visited websites with the country domain of an EU member state, .eu or .ch. All of them, no sample.

02

What is read

Only what every visitor sees: product and collection lists, home page, 3 product pages, the beginnings of up to 30 product images. robots.txt applies.

03

What counts

An EU label in the delivered code and provenance evidence (C2PA, IPTC) on the image copies. No AI detector, no estimate.

04

What is published

Only totals across at least 50 stores, with a 95% interval. No store names, no ranking.

Required details

Details of this edition

Edition
Edition 1, published on 2 October 2026
Method
Version v1.1
Measurement period
1 October 2026 to 2 October 2026
Stores
3,136 surveyed, of which 2,992 measurable
Population
Shopify stores with an EU or Swiss country domain from the Tranco list of the most visited websites
Frame
Domains in the Tranco list (top 1 million) with the country domain of an EU member state, .eu or .ch whose DNS points to Shopify's storefront addresses, excluding stores with a business relationship with the publisher; all stores in this frame were surveyed (full census)
Citation of the source
Le Pochat et al., NDSS 2019, doi 10.14722/ndss.2019.23386
Read cap
25.6% of the 2,992 measurable stores (24.0-27.2%): cap of 5,000 products or time limit reached; inventory figures there are lower bounds.
Publisher
Easy AI Act Image Labels, a Shopify app for labelling AI images
Objection
Objections and questions to the address in the legal notice; what the bot reads and how to block it: EasyAIActLabelsBot.

Outcome per surveyed store

Share of all 3,136 stores surveyed, with 95% interval. Only measurable stores count towards the figures above.

measurable 95.4% 94.6-96.1%
robots.txt blocks the product list 1.2% 0.9-1.7%
store with password 0.1% 0.0-0.2%
bot protection (challenge) 0.0% 0.0-0.2%
no public Shopify product list 2.0% 1.6-2.6%
not reachable 0.4% 0.2-0.6%
measurement error 0.9% 0.6-1.3%
text and data mining reservation 0.0% 0.0-0.1%
crawl delay above 30 s 0.0% 0.0-0.1%
Limits

What the figures do not say

Which stores. The figures apply to Shopify stores with an EU or Swiss country domain from the Tranco list of the most visited websites, not to all Shopify stores in Europe. Stores under .com or .shop are not included.

Copy, not original. Stores often deliver re-encoded copies, and the evidence is usually lost in the process. A store without a finding may have AI images with evidence in the original.

Label in the code. What counts is an EU label in the delivered code of 4 pages. Labels that a script only sets in the browser are not seen by the measurement. Recognised are the configuration of Easy AI Act Image Labels as well as official EU icons and label texts on images in the code; other implementations only count in this form. The rate is therefore not a market share and not a comparison.

First images. For each product, the first image is read. Additional and mood images are not included.

Point in time. The figures are a snapshot. Edition 1 was measured before 2 December 2026. Only from that date do providers of older AI generators also have to mark their output.

Data

Download and cite

The files contain only cells, n, shares, intervals and summary statistics, no stores. Field names and notes are in German; the JSON file describes every column and rule. Licence: CC BY 4.0. You may use, share and adapt the data, also commercially, if you credit the source as in the suggested citation.

Suggested citationShopify AI Image Index, edition 1 (October 2026). Easy AI Act Image Labels. easyaiactlabels.com/en/shopify-ai-image-index/

Published by Easy AI Act Image Labels, a Shopify app for labelling AI images. No store is named. To exclude your store, block EasyAIActLabelsBot in robots.txt or write to the address in the legal notice. Details on the bot: EasyAIActLabelsBot.

Your store

What about your store?

The AI image checker shows you the same values for your own store, free and without installation. The app reads the provenance markers on the originals: Free plan always free with 25 labels, 7-day free trial of Unlimited.

Check storeView on the Shopify App Store