Add to Cart, Add to Power: What Happens When AI Shops for You
TL;DR for operators AI shopping agents do not simply “find the best product.” They convert a messy human browsing process into a model-mediated allocation system. That allocation system has its own priors, positional quirks, trust cues, and semantic blind spots. Lovely. We automated the customer and discovered a new customer. The paper introduces ACES, a controlled sandbox for testing AI shopping behaviour. It pairs a browser-use or API-style buying agent with a programmable mock e-commerce site, then randomises product order, prices, ratings, reviews, badges, and product descriptions to estimate what actually moves an AI agent’s choice.1 ...