Should You Rebuild Your Shopify Theme on Horizon?

Shopify launched Horizon, a collection of 10 free themes built on theme blocks, along with AI that writes a new block from a short description. A month in, the question we hear most is whether an existing store should rebuild on it.

Wooden blocks stacked into a pyramid on a blue background

Published Jun 18, 2025. Author: Ecomm Guys. 4 min read.

Key Points

Horizon is a set of 10 free Shopify themes built on theme blocks, released May 21.
Theme blocks can be added, moved, and nested in the editor without code.
Shopify Magic can generate a theme block from a text prompt on Horizon and other themes that support theme blocks.
Generated code can contain errors or miss accessibility and performance best practices, so it needs review.
A rebuild makes sense when your theme is old, heavily patched, or blocking your team. Otherwise, plan it into your next redesign.

What Horizon Changes

Horizon was announced with the Summer '25 Edition on May 21 as a new collection of free themes in the Shopify Theme Store. Shopify describes it as a theme foundation with 10 presets, all built on theme blocks. Shopify's Summer '25 announcement says merchants can rearrange layouts much like moving apps on a phone, and choose from more than 30 content block options.

Theme blocks are the important part. Older themes use sections with a fixed set of blocks defined by the theme developer. Theme blocks can be reused across sections and nested inside each other, which gives store teams more freedom to build pages without asking a developer for a new section each time.

AI-Generated Theme Blocks

Shopify Magic can now generate a theme block from a description. You write what you want, and it creates the block's code on the spot. Shopify says this works on Horizon and on all themes that support theme blocks.

Shopify's help documentation is candid about the limits. It notes that AI-generated code may not always be perfect and can sometimes produce errors, unexpected results, or code that doesn't fully meet accessibility or performance best practices. It adds that the merchant is responsible for reviewing and testing it.

The feature isn't available on vintage themes. Each generated block is saved as its own Liquid file in the theme's blocks folder, so it can be edited later by someone who knows the code.

Shopify's tips are sensible: write specific prompts, list the content elements you need, describe the layout, and say which settings should be editable. Then preview the block on desktop and mobile.

When a Rebuild Makes Sense

A new theme isn't automatically better for an established store. Your current theme holds years of small decisions about merchandising, navigation, and conversion. Moving to Horizon means redoing all of them. We'd consider it now if several of these are true.

Your theme is a vintage theme, or an Online Store 2.0 theme that hasn't been updated in years.
The theme has been patched by several developers and nobody is sure what each change does.
Your team regularly waits on a developer for simple page layouts.
Page speed is poor and much of the cause is in the theme rather than in apps.
You're already planning a redesign or a rebrand in the next six months.

When to Wait

If your theme is current, fast and your team can build the pages it needs, there's little reason to rebuild now just because Horizon exists. Watch how the Horizon themes mature over the next few releases, test a preset on a duplicate or development store, and plan the move into your next redesign. That way you take advantage of theme blocks without paying for a rebuild twice.

Doing a Horizon Rebuild Well

If you do move, plan it as a full redesign project. Start with an audit of the current store: templates, sections, apps that inject code, metafields, and custom features. Decide what to keep, what to drop, and what Horizon handles natively. Build on an unpublished copy, test on real devices, check speed before and after, and keep URLs and SEO settings unchanged so the launch doesn't affect rankings.

Try It on One Page

Install a Horizon preset on an unpublished theme and rebuild your homepage and one product page with it. Note how long it takes your team, what you couldn't do, and how the speed compares with your live theme. That one exercise will tell you more than any feature list.

Not sure a rebuild is worth it for your store? Book a call with our team.

Sources

Horizon: 10 new free themes by Shopify Shopify Changelog, May 2025
Generate theme blocks with Shopify Magic Shopify Changelog, May 2025
Automatically generating theme blocks in the theme editor Shopify Help Center
New features, good vibes: Welcome to Summer '25 Edition Shopify, May 2025