Shortly after Google announced its new Common Commerce Protocol for AI-powered purchasing brokers, a shopper economics watchdog sounded the alarm.
In a now viral post on X considered practically 400,000 occasions, Lindsay Owens on Sunday wrote, “Massive/dangerous information for shoppers. Google is out right now with an announcement of how they plan to combine purchasing into their AI choices together with search and Gemini. The plan contains ‘personalised upselling.’ I.e. Analyzing your chat information and utilizing it to overcharge you.”
Owens is government director of the buyer economics suppose tank Groundwork Collaborative. Her concern stems from Google’s roadmap, as well as delving into some of its detailed specification docs. The roadmap features a function that may assist “upselling,” which may assist retailers promote dearer gadgets to AI purchasing brokers.
She additionally referred to as out Google’s plans to regulate costs for applications like new-member reductions or loyalty-based pricing, which Google CEO Sundar Pichai described when he introduced the brand new protocol on the Nationwide Retail Federation convention.
After TechCrunch inquired about Owens’ allegations, Google each publicly responded on X and spoke with TechCrunch on to reject the validity of her considerations.
In a submit on X, Google responded that, “These claims round pricing are inaccurate. We strictly prohibit retailers from exhibiting costs on Google which might be greater than what’s mirrored on their website, interval. 1/ The time period “upselling” isn’t about overcharging. It’s a normal means for retailers to indicate extra premium product choices that folks is perhaps all in favour of. The selection is at all times with the consumer on what to purchase. 2/ “Direct Provides” is a pilot that allows retailers to supply a *decrease* priced deal or add further providers like free transport — it can’t be used to boost costs.”
In a separate dialog with TechCrunch, a Google spokesperson mentioned that Google’s Enterprise Agent doesn’t have performance that may permit it to vary a retailer’s pricing primarily based on particular person information.
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Owens additionally identified that Google’s technical paperwork on handling a shopper’s identity say that: “The scope complexity must be hidden within the consent display screen proven to the consumer.”
The Google spokesperson informed TechCrunch that this isn’t about hiding what the consumer is agreeing to, however consolidating actions (get, create, replace, delete, cancel, full) as a substitute making a consumer agree to every one individually.
Even when Owens’ considerations about this explicit protocol are a nothingburger as Google asserts, her common premise continues to be value some thought.
She is warning that purchasing brokers constructed by Massive Tech may in the future permit retailers to customise pricing primarily based on what they suppose you might be prepared to pay after analyzing your AI chats and purchasing patterns. That is as a substitute of charging the identical worth to everybody. She calls it “surveillance pricing.”
Though Google says its brokers can’t do such a factor now, it’s additionally true that Google is, at its coronary heart, an promoting firm serving manufacturers and retailers. Final 12 months, a federal court docket ordered Google to change a number of search business practices after ruling the corporate was engaged in anticompetitive habits.
Whereas many people are excited to welcome a world the place we’d have a crew of AI brokers dealing with pesky duties for us (rescheduling physician’s appointments, researching substitute mini-blinds), it doesn’t take a clairvoyant to see the sorts of abuse that will probably be potential.
The issue is that the large tech firms which might be in one of the best place to construct agentic purchasing instruments even have essentially the most combined incentives. Their enterprise rests on serving the sellers and harvesting information on shoppers.
Meaning AI-powered purchasing may very well be an enormous alternative for startups constructing unbiased tech. We’re seeing the primary few sprinkles of AI-powered potentialities. Startups like Dupe, which makes use of pure language queries to assist individuals discover reasonably priced furnishings, and Beni, which makes use of picture and textual content for thrifting trend, are early entrants on this area.
Till then, the outdated adage most likely holds true: purchaser beware.
