About AskSlate

Built by someone who's actually shipped the thing.

AskSlate is a focused, AI-native Shopify app studio — the operational tooling and custom apps off-the-shelf apps can't cover. It's led by Ashley Coker, who's spent a career shipping real products in places where “mostly works” isn't good enough.

BSc Computer Science, Royal Holloway (ML / neural nets)Shipped Histora — Built for ShopifyBuilt a regulated fintechLed delivery at Nationwide

The story

From generalist consultancy to a focused studio.

AskSlate started as a software consultancy — Ashley built and led a 15-person delivery team, shipping across fintech, enterprise, and e-commerce for everyone from startups to corporate banks. That range taught one thing sharply: the work that matters most is the specific, operational problem no product off the shelf will solve.

So AskSlate has narrowed its focus. Today it's an AI-native Shopify app studio: custom apps, internal tooling and automations for merchants and agencies, built fast and built to last. Same instincts — small elite team, performance obsession, correctness first — pointed at one clear market. (The same engineering also builds ChatGPT apps and custom web apps on Gadget; Shopify is simply where we lead.)

Track record

Selected brands our founder and team have delivered for.

Across a career before this focus — proof of the standard, not a menu of what we sell today.

NationwideLEGOSkyVictoria BeckhamCambridge CognitionBritish Horseracing Authority

Where we came from · Nationwide

Brought in to fix what a big programme couldn't.

Nationwide's delivery partner, IBM, brought Slate in to crack a banking-app performance problem the wider programme had spent heavily on. We cut load times from up to 16 seconds to under one — fast — and that turned into a standing role as a “centre of excellence”: the next-gen mobile banking app, the Nationwide Experience Language design system, and being instrumental in the UK's first bank digital journey for the Covid mortgage payment break.

16s → <1s

Banking app load time

1st

UK bank Covid mortgage-break journey

▶Watch on YouTube

Nationwide's Head of Digital Technology & Engineering on working with Slate. (Earlier Slate-brand video.)

How we think about AI

AI-native for speed — clear-eyed about the risk.

We use AI as a first-class part of the workflow, not a novelty. We also know exactly where it breaks — and build accordingly.

Force multiplier

Fast where it's safe

AI accelerates refactors, scaffolding, debugging and turning ideas into working code — the undifferentiated work, done quicker.

Sharp edges

Rigor where it counts

Models hallucinate APIs, miss cross-file invariants, and “fix” symptoms while baking in the real bug. So the correctness-critical logic gets proper engineering.

The result

Fast and correct

It's how Histora shipped in six weeks and still holds Built-for-Shopify status — and why a regulated lender trusted the build.

Let's build the thing
only you need.

Tell us the operational problem no off-the-shelf app solves. We'll tell you honestly whether an AI Ops Sprint can fix it.

Book an AI Ops Sprint→