Is this the AI commerce world we want?

Let's imagine a future.

I get up in the morning, have a chat with my 'Alexa' about how I'm feeling, and what I need for the day. I jump in the shower, by the time I get out my ideal breakfast is waiting for me downstairs. I go for a walk, and on the way i talk to 'ChatGPT' about the rug I want to buy, and it heads off and tries to source that.

My day is about controlling agents, they are feeding back to me, I'm feeding them, in between I'm at the gym or meeting friends for lunch, or in some virtual reality set exercising and playing at the same time. 

Life has become about fitness, peace, calm. The colleagues I have are mainly artificial, the friends I have are real.

This all sounds great.

So let's get back to now.

There are a few things at play at present. Everyone is scrambling. The whales are building, and they are building fast. There is a land grab going on where the fittest and the smartest will survive. The rest will either choose to give up because its just not worth it, or live in either panic or oblivion until they have to give up.

What we have to really question is - is this worth it?

2026 is chaotic. AI is all around us, but for most its largely unstructured and chaotic. Its frying many people's brains. For some its an addiction, for others its a burden. The docs, the strategic 'help', the sheer volume of information we are both consuming and is being passed to us is high. One employee has the potential to crash a whole engineering team, a whole management team. Thats the reality.

My view?

AI + Mediocre == Mediocre at best

AI isn't going to improve you. Unless you learn how to harness it. If all you do is follow AI and regurgitate it - well your job is gone. Why? Because an engineer can execute that better.

Where I see AI win is where the person using already understands their area of expertise. And often what I see is without AI they are currently excelling beyond those that have. Because those that have are literally drowning in their own discussion.

There is absolutely no doubt that AI will change how we all work. And what we do. And we need to shift to thinking about that now. Not tomorrow. But we also need to consider what is still important. And for me that is:

• Solid foundational principles

• Integrity

• Pace not Haste

• Proof of Data

• Calm

You can't work in chaos. Full stop. You can't work without a plan. Whats becoming important with the next generation of employee is:

• Ability to communicate and collaborate

• Ability to create and execute a plan

• Flexibility and Agility

• Focus

The last is paramount. If you can't focus and stay on one topic you are in trouble. And today's society is lending to allowing people not to focus. Its all around us, even I have been struggling with it. We need to put down our phones, learn to read a book again, learn to concentrate. Otherwise we are entering the 'brain rot' era. 

And what about Commerce?

I think there are very real risks at present. The big is getting bigger. And I'm not sure thats good for the economy or our ecosystem. Whenever you have a monopoly there is only 1 winner, 1 big cat. And greed leads a lot of things. I wish we had a true ecosystem based leader in this space, but I'm afraid we dont. There is a need for those that drive mutual growth, not just those that drive for growth for the singular. 

The trouble with greed is that it leads to more greed, it just grows. But if there is no money to purchase there is no ecommerce, and if you look at the economy around supporting ecommerce its concerning to think that could in the future be in danger. I dont think it will disappear but I think there is a high chance of it being controlled by the few. Amazon did nothing for a lot of ecommerce. There are whole sectors that no longer are viable.

There are advantages tho. I think there is a massive gap for more experimentation and wider purchasing habits. Just this year I did a house renovation in the UK and I was able to source much more specialist items than I would have if I had not had AI, creating for instance the downstairs cloakroom (as shown on the featured image) was created using AI. Its allowing the imagination to grow. But its also supporting that smaller seller.

I think btw its funny putting a lavatory in a blog post....! Shoutout to Thomas Crapper for the bathroom suite.

So commerce in terms of the stores I think has opportunity, what we need the platform leaders to do is realise their responsibility and drive for common good for all. This is a shaky world, many are concerned for their jobs, their businesses, and when leaders leave people in uncertainty around a whole industry this gives me cause for concern. 

Leadership is not just about what you do at a technical level, its about how you lead. My job I always say is to 1) protect and 2) nurture my team. That can be hard sometimes as you have to give a hard reality, but the goal is to set people up so they can work in this new world. Which is a big shift for them, for many their skills will have to profoundly changing in the next 12 months, for engineering their skills have already changed profoundly over the last 12 months, its affecting it all.

Leaders in eCommerce I ask you help provide the calm. Lay out your ambitions so your ecosystem can work within it. Don't bite the hand that feeds you. Make sure you support those that are supporting you, not just use for your own agenda.

Its time to partner, its time to collaborate. Its time to grow together and realise we need to work as a team, both internally and externally. Innovation is key, but I am a firm believer innovation should be encouraged from the small to the large, and true ecosystems always make way for the new. If they do not do this they become eventually the next irrelevant, as there is no cycle for refresh. 

This is why we have things like monopolies and mergers commissions btw. Somewhere I think we have lost sight of the need for competition, and AI runs a real risk of making that situation worse. I hope that reform comes soon, and I ask that employees consider the health of their staff in this race for AI. I'm adding a mandate to ShipperHQ that we shift from AI first to AI last. Humans first, second and third.

This will not stop innovation, this will not stop AI, but we are making a statement that the center of our organization has to be humans.

Then secondly I want to bring back authentic writing. So I'm adding a section to our blog for non-AI written posts. These arent just not written using AI I'm also not using AI to get the content for them. We need to keep traditions alive. I remember when vinyl records were replaced first by the tape, then the cd, then the mp3. Now nothing gives me greater pleasure than playing a record at the weekend. And I'm a computer scientist, I also like to be on the racing rig with my young adult sons pretending I'm driving a F1 car(badly often tbh!), or talking to ChatGPT on the way home on how I can refine xyz. But we have to have balance. For 2027 lets find the balance. In eCommerce and beyond.

Back to the utopia at the start of this post

It sounds great. But we have a ways to get there. And we need to ensure we have the economy to support it. Let's also not forget today and living now for promise of this future tomorrow. Whats the saying - Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift, make sure you enjoy it.