“Chatbot developers and retail giants are battling over user data as they lay the foundation for a future in which AI agents can do all your online shopping for you.”
It’s strange how we’ve moved from mall shopping to online shopping to now AI shopping for us
Humans shopping online allows the seller to offer discounts, upsell services, create serendipity (“How about a lip gloss 50% to go with those shoes?”), and build brand loyalty. Or if you’re a techie, how about 50% off an SD-card with the purchase of a gadget?
This is why retailers create these expensive e-commerce websites instead of just dumping their wares into E-Bay or Amazon. They also do things like web heatmaps and other types of analytics to optimize the UI/UX.
Having an AI agent do the shopping means they lose all that. It’s any wonder they’re going to fight AI shopping agents. Be prepared for a lot more complex captchas when roaming around the web.