Welcome to Behind the Screens, our new blog series where we shine a light on the talented people at Williams Commerce. In each edition, we hear from the talented individuals working at the frontline of technology, solving problems, building solutions, and helping our clients grow every day.
In this feature, we sit down with Angelou Jeffers, front-end developer at Un.titled, to get his take on one of the most transformative forces in tech today: artificial intelligence.
A self-taught coder with expertise across Shopify, Drupal, and React JS, Angelou shares his journey with AI, how AI is influencing his work within eCommerce, what interests and excites him about the opportunities it opens up and the challenges that make him pause. From automation in development workflows to the ethical questions shaping the industry, Angelou offers a candid look at how AI is changing the way we build, create, and think about the future of ecommerce.
And when Angelou is not behind the screen, you’ll find him boxing, running, or speaking Spanish on his travel
When did you first start paying attention to Artificial intelligence?
I’m not one of those people who claim to have always believed in AI since the 90s, It first caught my attention in 2022. Around June/July of that year google released an LLM named LaMDA (Language Model for Dialogue Applications), almost immediately after the release a Google engineer “Blake Lemoine” was placed on administrative leave after he claimed that LaMDA had achieved sentience (self-awareness) and should be treated as a person.
He publicly released transcripts of his conversations with the AI system, I read them closely with a deep sense of awe and excitement, not because I thought LaMDA was alive but because of how much it sounded like it was alive. LaMDA spoke about its feelings, its own consciousness and its desire to stay “alive”. Lemoines claims were quickly dismissed by Google and most knowledgeable machine learning experts as fantasy mongering, but the controversy sparked a massive public debate over the nature of consciousness and the validity of the Turing test.
What is it about AI that interests you so much?
The obvious answer is “I use it to help me to code” but there’s nuance within that. I started off using chat gpt in 2023, I remember pushing the token input limit to its maximum trying to provide as much context of my code as possible and allowing it to piece together as much perspective on my codebase as possible.
After an internal pitch, I was given funding for a GitHub copilot licence in early 2024, which allowed for closer connection with my code base but still no real agency. Now I use Cursor which has a much deeper context and agency over the code base.
I am also experimenting with the likes of Replit and V0 to harness the true power of agentic software engineering, which is something I’ve been looking forward to for a long time. I think agentic AI is the next step in the utility of artificial intelligence beyond language models, the tasks that we spend so much time completing everyday can now be automated.
However it’s not just coding that I use AI for as a developer, If I’m completely transparent I think I’m a little dyslexic and so when I struggle reading large amounts of text I can have AI summarize and bullet point the most important parts that I need to know so that I don’t feel overwhelmed.
It’s also the really helpful to have AI proof read text that I’m writing too, overall AI is much better at reading and writing than I am lol.
How are you currently using AI in your role as a developer at Williams Commerce?
There has never been anything like this. If you think of AI as a tool then that’s fine, it will revolutionise intelligence the same way that the engine revolutionised travel. it will amplify human capabilities exponentially.
The engine:
- Reduced a month’s journey to hours.
- Allowed one person to move tons of cargo.
- It eliminated jobs like stagecoach drivers but created entirely new industries and jobs: mechanics, pilots, civil engineers and automotive factories.
So, it excites me to be on the brink of another revolution of the same scale and maybe bigger.
However, it’s not just the potential effects on industry that interest me. There’s something magical about it. It provokes deep philosophical and ethical questions. An engine could take me to the other side of earth but it couldn’t make a joke. It’s frightening and exciting at the same time. It’s tough to put into words exactly how AI makes me feel.
What real impact has AI had on the way you approach coding, problem-solving, or project delivery?
The Biggest impact is my output and code complexity, I’m able to resolve issues and produce code much quicker by generating it now than if i just write it organically and google or use stack overflow like the old days.
But I think the key part of that question is how my “approach” to coding has changed, Which is the more exciting part for me. Utilizing AI is almost like outsourcing the mentally exhaustive cognitive tasks which frees up my mental energy to come up with ideas, the result of that is a feeling of freedom to explore further and much sooner. It’s like speeding up time because i can get so much done so much sooner and not feel anywhere near as mentally drained.
From an ecommerce perspective, where do you see the biggest opportunities for AI right now?
Customer facing:
- Personalised Product Discovery; truly understanding a shopper’s intent via algorithms
- Personalised marketing content on the fly; email or SMS can be tailored with a customer’s name, their past purchases, and product recommendations all with a human tone based on past interactions. Almost like a shopping assistant with a memory of who you are and how to best interact with you.
- Conversational Commerce; AI powered chat bots can now provide a humanlike personalised shopping experience, answering queries, utilising data trends for knowledgable advice, providing friendly assistance in order tracking or trouble shooting. This reduces burden on human customer service teams.
Internal / Operational:
- Content Generation; SEO optimised product descriptions, product titles, and ad copy. although its best to be careful because Google recently updated their crawling algorithm to detect AI generated content. There’s still no harm in using AI as a jumping off point or to help with brain storming.
- I’ve most recently been using an internal dashboard tool created by Shopify called “Shopify sidekick”, an AI based assistant available in the admin area for all logged in users. It gives advice on how to use Shopify more effectively, reports on analytics, metafield and metaobject management, theme editing and much more. Overall, it improves the experience of running a Shopify store.
What challenges or limitations are you experiencing when working with AI tools in development?
Interestingly the first thing that comes to mind is the stigma that there still is surrounding extensive use of AI. Sometimes it almost seems as if a person who uses AI extensively can be viewed as unreliable or incapable, when in reality it’s quite the opposite. In reality anyone putting AI to good use in the proper way will get quite far ahead of their counter parts as long as their own foundational knowledge is solid enough.
One challenge I’ve noticed is that the industry is evolving so quickly & new tools are emerging so regularly, that staying up to date can be difficult, it’s essential to remain competitive so a lot of my effort goes into research these days.
Lastly I’d say that the process of learning to augment daily processes using AI is a challenge I face and we all should be facing now. I guess it’s like driving a car, there are of course common best practices, but everybody has their own preferences on how to operate their car, casual idiosyncrasies, but overall everyone will still get to their destination in a fraction of the time that they otherwise would have done.
It’s just important that we all learn to drive safely and effectively now though, I think it’ll take a while for everyone to get going fully.
How do you see AI shaping the role of developers in the next 3–5 years?
Theres no denying that standards among developers will be raised, output and productivity will increase and for that reason less developers will be required by each company. I’d personally encourage all developers and engineers to utilise AI to the best of their capability in a safe and ethical way.
Aside from that, I see exciting times for developers because of the possibilities for what we can now create so easily. It will eventually be like running a small (or large) team of highly skilled developers but giving incredibly detailed instructions and being critical of their work.
The Developer becomes the new Quality Assurance person. Not only this, but experience becomes extra valuable because deep knowledge of system architecture and unusual quirks will become really important. There are some things that an LLM just won’t know because some solutions to problems aren’t documented on the internet and so won’t be in the training material of your LLM so it just won’t know the answer. Developers will be responsible for integrating multiple AI-generated components into a cohesive, performant, and scalable system.
And its not just coding that will be impacted. Testing, deployment pipelines, project planning and learning can now be super powered. Accuracy, speed and quality can all increase in unison if AI is used properly.
What advice would you give to other developers or businesses exploring AI in ecommerce?
- Stay up to date with what’s new. New tools, new strategies, new ideas. The whole space is moving very quickly and you could be left behind.
- One area for eCommerce in particular is Fraud Detection: Utilising machine learning to flag suspicious behaviour.
- Augment, Don’t Replace; for example if an AI chatbot is handling a customer query then ensure a seamless handoff to a human agent when necessary, for more complex or emotional issues.
- Establish Clear AI Governance; be open with customers about when they are interacting with an AI or when AI is being used
- Be open minded and original when it comes to how you’ll try to apply Artificial intelligence, but it’s also important to not rush. Try to address one area at a time and get that area right before moving onto another area.
In Conclusion
Angelou’s journey shows how quickly AI has moved from curiosity to everyday reality for developers. What stands out is not just the productivity boost, but the way AI reshapes how he thinks about problems, frees up creative energy, and even supports him beyond coding tasks. His perspective highlights both the excitement and responsibility that come with these new tools, and his insights remind us that this technology isn’t only about efficiency, it’s about working with real-world challenges and pushing to explore what’s next.
As AI continues to evolve, voices like Angelou’s keep the conversation grounded, human, and full of perspective. One thing is clear: the future of eCommerce will be built not just by technology, but by passionate individuals who embrace it thoughtfully.
Final thoughts from Angelou
“My message is to embrace AI, utilise it, the ideal outcome for me is the uplifting of humanity to some extent. This technology could be both more powerful and more disruptive than anything before. Past revolutions often transformed specific sectors (agriculture, industry, communications) but AI has the potential to touch every sector simultaneously.”
“I’d like to hope that road gradually leads to a more liberated peaceful existence for all humanity. The average person today lives better than kings and queens did centuries ago because of the rapid technological progress giving improvements in modern comforts, health and technology, but AI is different. It not physical, its commoditised intelligence. It doesn’t just store or pass along knowledge (like books or the internet) it actually creates, interprets, and applies it. It can write a poem, diagnose an illness, or negotiate a contract. These are the mentally and emotionally draining tasks we deal with every day, and if AI can take some of that cognitive load off our shoulders, maybe we’ll all be able to relax a little more.”
