Shortly after Google announced a new universal commerce protocol for its AI-powered shopping agents, consumer economic watchdog groups sounded the alarm.
“Big news and bad news for consumers: Google today announced how it plans to integrate shopping into its AI services, including search and Gemini. Those plans include ‘personalized upsells,'” Lindsay Owens wrote on Sunday in a viral post on X that has been viewed nearly 400,000 times. That means analyzing your chat data and using it to overcharge you. ”
Owens is executive director of the Groundwork Collaborative, a consumer economics think tank. Her concerns stem from looking at Google’s roadmap and looking at some of its detailed specification documents. The roadmap includes features that support “upsells,” which help sellers promote more expensive products to AI shopping agents.
He also mentioned Google’s plans to adjust prices for programs such as new member discounts and loyalty-based pricing, which Google CEO Sundar Pichai outlined when he announced new protocols at the National Retail Federation conference.
After TechCrunch inquired about Owens’ claims, Google responded publicly regarding X and spoke directly with TechCrunch to deny the validity of her concerns.
In a post to This is a standard way for retailers to display additional premium product options that people may be interested in. The choice about what to buy always lies with the user. 2/ “Direct Offer” is an experimental measure that allows sellers to offer deals at *lower* prices. Additional services such as free shipping cannot be added. It cannot be used to increase prices. ”
In a separate conversation with TechCrunch, a Google spokesperson said that Google’s Business Agent does not have the ability to change retailer pricing based on individual data.
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Owens also pointed out that Google’s technical documentation on processing shopper identities states that “the complexity of scope should be hidden in the consent screen that users see.”
A Google spokesperson told TechCrunch that this is not about hiding what users are consenting to, but rather unifying actions (get, create, update, delete, cancel, complete) and allowing users to consent to each one separately.
Even if Owens’ concerns about this particular protocol are nothing, as Google claims, her general premise is still worth some thought.
She warns that shopping agents built by Big Tech could allow merchants to customize prices based on what they think users are willing to pay after analyzing AI chats and shopping patterns. This is done instead of charging everyone the same price. She calls it “surveillance pricing.”
Although Google says agencies can’t do that right now, it’s also true that Google is essentially an advertising company serving brands and merchants. Last year, a federal court ordered Google to change a number of its search business practices after finding that the company engaged in anticompetitive conduct.
While many of us would be excited to welcome a world in which teams of AI agents handle messy tasks for us (like rescheduling doctor’s appointments or inspecting replacement mini-blinds), it doesn’t take clairvoyance to see what kinds of abuses can occur.
The problem is that the big tech companies that are best positioned to build agent shopping tools have the most complex incentives. Their business depends on providing services to merchants and collecting data about consumers.
In short, AI-powered shopping could be a huge opportunity for independent technology startups. We are seeing the first few glimpses of what is possible with AI. Startups like Dupe, which uses natural language queries to help people find affordable furniture, and Beni, which uses images and text to save money on fashion, are early entrants into this space.
Until then, the old adage “buyer beware” probably applies.
