Until now, sellers have used AI to get the best deal for themselves – those tables are about to turn

• They are among the firms - alongside our grocery duopoly - investing the most in artificial intelligence in the form of data analytics and machine learning.
• Their investments include staff – often hundreds of data scientists – plus information technology systems and external consultants.
• It isn’t cheap, and ultimately much of it will be paid for by customers.

Comparing prices has become next to impossible

• (The fact they refer to what they are doing as offering discounts doesn’t change the reality that what they are doing is charging higher prices to the customers least likely to notice or complain.)
• To succeed at this game requires vast amounts of customer data, which they have via loyalty schemes and information about past online purchases but their customers do not.

AI is starting to turn the tables

• For some time now online communities of “points hackers” have been running massive spreadsheets squeezing out the best deals for shoppers and swapping tips.
• It’s artificial intelligence of the kind that only became widely available a year ago with the launch of ChatGPT.
• Already, websites are offering AI assistants or “copilots” to pore over our financial records and scour the web, tirelessly haggling with providers’ automated copilots on our behalf.

Prepare for haggle-bots, that work for us

• Comparison shopping is the cornerstone of a well-functioning market economy, helping moderate profits and keeping costs down.
• Read more:
  Hotel booking sites actually make it hard to get cheap deals, but there's a way around it

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