When AI goes shopping: AI agents promise to lighten your purchasing load − if they can earn your trust

Will you let AI do the shopping for you? Lebazele/E+ via Getty Images

Online shopping often involves endless options and fleeting discounts. A single search for running shoes can yield hundreds of results across multiple platforms, each promising the “best deal.” The holiday season brings excitement, but it also brings a blend of decision fatigue and logistical nightmares.

What if there were a tool capable of hunting for the best prices, navigating endless sales and making sure your purchases arrive on time?

The next evolution in artificial intelligence is AI agents that are capable of autonomous reasoning and multistep problem-solving. AI shopping agents not only suggest what you might like, but they can also act on your behalf. Major retailers and AI companies are developing AI shopping assistants, and the AI company Perplexity released Buy with Pro on Nov. 18, 2024.

Picture this: You prompt AI to find a winter coat under $200 that’s highly rated and will arrive by Sunday. In seconds, it scans websites, compares prices, checks reviews, confirms availability and places the order, all while you go about your day.

Perpelexity’s recently released AI shopping agent can search for items across the web using multiple free-form variables sucgh as color, size, price and shipping time.
Screenshot by Tamilla Triantoro

Unlike traditional recommendation engines, AI agents learn your preferences and handle tasks autonomously. The agents are built with machine learning and natural language processing. They learn from their interactions with the people using them and become smarter and more efficient over time from their collective interactions.

Looking ahead, AI agents are likely to not only master personal shopping needs but also negotiate directly with corporate AI systems. They will not only learn your preferences but will likely be able to book tailored experiences, handle payments across platforms and coordinate schedules.

As a researcher who studies human-AI collaboration, I see how AI agents could make the future of shopping virtually effortless and more personalized than ever.

How AI agents help shoppers

Marketplaces such as Amazon and Walmart have been using AI to automate shopping. Google Lens offers a visual search tool for finding products.

Perplexity’s Buy with Pro is a more powerful AI shopping agent. By providing your shipping and billing information, you can place orders directly on the Perplexity app with free shipping on every order. The shopping assistant is part of the company’s Perplexity Pro service, which has free and paid tiers.

For those looking to build custom AI shopping agents, AutoGPT and AgentGPT are open-source tools for configuring and deploying AI agents.

Consumers today are focused on value, looking for deals and comparing prices across platforms. Having an assistant perform these tasks could be a tremendous time saver. But can AI truly learn your preferences?

A recent study using the GPT-4o model achieved 85% accuracy in imitating the thoughts and behaviors of over 1,000 people after they interacted with the AI for just two hours. This breakthrough finding suggests that digital personas can understand and act on people’s preferences in ways that will transform the shopping experience.

How AI shopping reshapes business

AI agents are moving beyond recommendations to autonomously executing complex tasks such as automating refunds, managing inventory and approving pricing decisions. This evolution has already begun to reshape how businesses operate and how consumers interact with them.

Retailers using AI agents are seeing measurable benefits. Since October 2024, data from the Salesforce shopping index reveals that digital retailers using generative AI achieved a 7% increase in average order revenue and attributed 17% of global orders to AI-driven personalized recommendations, targeted promotions and improved customer service.

Meanwhile, the nature of search and advertising is undergoing a major shift. Amazon is capturing billions of dollars in ad revenue as shoppers bypass Google to search directly on its platform. Simultaneously, AI-powered search tools such as Perplexity and OpenAI’s web-enabled chat deliver instant, context-aware responses, challenging traditional search engines and forcing advertisers to rethink their strategies.

The outcome of the battle between Big Tech and open-source initiatives to shape the AI ecosystem is also likely to affect how the shopping experience changes.

Shoppers can have back-and-forth interactions with AI agents.
Screenshot by Tamilla Triantoro

The risks: Privacy, manipulation and dependency

While AI agents offer significant benefits, they also raise critical privacy concerns. AI systems require extensive access to personal data, shopping history and financial information. This level of access increases the risk of misuse and unauthorized sharing.

Manipulation is another issue. AI can be highly persuasive and may be optimized to serve corporate interests over consumer welfare. Such technology can prioritize upselling or nudging shoppers toward higher-margin products under the guise of personalization.

There’s also the risk of dependency. Automating many aspects of shopping could diminish the satisfaction of making choices. Research in human-AI interaction indicates that while AI tools can reduce cognitive load, increased reliance on AI could impair people’s ability to critically evaluate their options.

What’s next?

AI-based shopping is still in its infancy, so how much trust should you place in it?

In our book “Converging Minds,” AI researcher Aleksandra Przegalinska and I argue for a balanced and critical approach to AI adoption, recognizing both its potential and its pitfalls.

As cognitive scientist Gary Marcus points out, AI’s moral limitations stem from technical constraints: Despite efforts to prevent errors, these systems remain imperfect.

This cautious perspective is reflected in the responses from my MBA class. When I asked students whether they were ready to outsource their holiday shopping to AI, the answer was an overwhelming no. Ethan Mollick, a professor at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania, has argued that the adoption of AI in everyday life will be gradual, as societal change typically lags behind technological advancement.

Before people are willing to hand over their credit cards and let AI take the reins, businesses will have to ensure that AI systems align with human values and priorities. The promise of AI is vast, but to fulfill that promise I believe that AI will need to be an extension of human intention – not a replacement for it.

Tamilla Triantoro does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.