The story:
Perplexity (an AI company) is being accused and legally challenged by Amazon (an AI company) of violating Amazon's terms and conditions by letting Perplexity's AI agent do customers' shopping on Amazon.

Of course, Amazon wants customers to use its shopping agent (in development).

The bad news for AI haters/non-users:
Have you tried to buy a new graphics card only to find that resellers have bought them all out and they are now only available at a 100% markup (a year later)?

Or, perhaps, tried to buy an event ticket (music or sports) to find those all gone, and the secondary market is asking you to pay with blood and a first born?

The AI shopping wars are coming. AI's will be able to snipe items that only earn their user a few dollars, instead of items that earn 100s of dollars. AI agents will have close to perfect, instant information about deals the second they are available. (distributed intelligence). If you want to have any chance of getting a good deal on any item that has limited quantities, you will have to use an AI agent.

I am not wild about where this is going (privacy concerns and I am something of a Luddite). Nevertheless, I strongly suggest everyone gets acquainted with some of the AI tools coming down the pipeline.

You don't want to be my father and be totally lost trying to use the WWW or starting a pc app. Although, I have fond memories of his trying.

https://www.cnbc.com/2025/11/04/perplexity-ai-amazon-bullying-comet-browser.html

Sounds like using a bot to win an eBay auction.

How does an AI help me when I just walk into Walmart or HEB and buy what I need/want?

I am not a lazy **** so I actually enter brick and mortars. I despise how lazy society has become.

BigRobSA said:

---

How does an AI help me when I just walk into Walmart or HEB and buy what I need/want?

I am not a lazy **** so I actually enter brick and mortars. I despise how lazy society has become.

---

You decry other's efficiency as laziness? Sometimes there's just better ways of doing things. You might miss out on some advancements with that attitude.

TacoKitKat said:

---

BigRobSA said:

---

How does an AI help me when I just walk into Walmart or HEB and buy what I need/want?

I am not a lazy **** so I actually enter brick and mortars. I despise how lazy society has become.

---

You decry other's efficiency as laziness? Sometimes there's just better ways of doing things. You might miss out on some advancements with that attitude.

---

Yes, you are correct.

America led the way, but all westernized countries have embraced gluttony and laziness, to extremes.

If it can keep me from having to turn around and go back to the hardware store after I just got home from the hardware store on Saturday mornings because I'm an absent minded fool...more power to them.

Good grief, I don't even know where to start to get a virtual shopper bot working for me.

BigRobSA said:

---

How does an AI help me when I just walk into Walmart or HEB and buy what I need/want?

I am not a lazy **** so I actually enter brick and mortars. I despise how lazy society has become.

---

News flash buddy not everything people buy online can be found in brick and mortar stores. I despise how lazy some of these responses have become.

I buy from Amazon not just for price but for easy returns, quick shipping, etc.

Bots buying up electronic tix is a completely different model.

Good luck buying huge quantities of goods and trying to flip them for a few bucks each.

Quote:

---

How does an AI help me when I just walk into Walmart or HEB and buy what I need/want?

---

Why would you buy it when you can just walk out with it? <says all the SNAP people>

Botulism.

I would consider myself an AI agnostic and couldn't care less about this. The less I (and my wife) buy online the better. If I can't get it for a price I want I just won't buy it.

BigRobSA said:

---

How does an AI help me when I just walk into Walmart or HEB and buy what I need/want?

I am not a lazy **** so I actually enter brick and mortars. I despise how lazy society has become.

---

1) if delivery is free/nearly your time is worth more than that. And the cost of driving to the store and back is not negligible. Disclaimer,I do all my own grocery shopping, too . but that does not fit into the theme - some kind of limited availability.

2) if you don't want to lean into using AI, don't.

CDUB98 said:

---

Good grief, I don't even know where to start to get a virtual shopper bot working for me.

---

Yeah, me neither.

But my mailed Christmas cards are courtesy of AI instead of the adobe suite for the first time this year. Adobe is just too expensive.

I have been working on setting up a AI limited model on my desktop. (Data Science stuff)

And played around using AI to create a "fake" video, jus to see how easy it was.

Lot's of places to start.

Quote:

---

But my mailed Christmas cards are courtesy of AI instead of the adobe suite for the first time this year. Adobe is just too expensive.

I have been working on setting up a AI limited model on my desktop. (Data Science stuff)

And played around using AI to create a "fake" video, jus to see how easy it was.

---

But, where are you getting these AI bots from?

Are there different websites or companies that sell them for you to customize to your needs?

Are they some form of ChatGBT, Perplexity, Samsung AI, etc. that use your device as an interface but run in the data centers?

These are examples of how I, quite literally, don't know where to start.

torrid said:

---

Sounds like using a bot to win an eBay auction.

---

Nope, it will find what you want to purchase, and buy it, autonomously (if you want). Set and forget. Tell it what sites it should troll or exclude. Use all the other agents' info to find it. Add to the bot traffic that is already the bulk of the internet. etc.

Still nascent, but will be used by "all".

Logos Stick said:

---

I buy from Amazon not just for price but for easy returns, quick shipping, etc.

Bots buying up electronic tix is a completely different model.

Good luck buying huge quantities of goods and trying to flip them for a few bucks each.

---

Ebay is built on this.

Over_ed said:

---

torrid said:

---

Sounds like using a bot to win an eBay auction.

---

Nope, it will find what you want to purchase, and buy it, autonomously (if you want). Set and forget. Tell it what sites it should troll or exclude. Use all the other agents' info to find it. Add to the bot traffic that is already the bulk of the internet. etc.

Still nascent, but will be used by "all".

---

Kinda like giving your spouse a credit card and telling her not to buy a car? Your results may vary but I don't think I'd build a business model out of it

TacoKitKat said:

---

BigRobSA said:

---

How does an AI help me when I just walk into Walmart or HEB and buy what I need/want?

I am not a lazy **** so I actually enter brick and mortars. I despise how lazy society has become.

---

You decry other's efficiency as laziness? Sometimes there's just better ways of doing things. You might miss out on some advancements with that attitude.

---

oh no

Tree Hugger said:

---

Quote:

---

How does an AI help me when I just walk into Walmart or HEB and buy what I need/want?

---

Why would you buy it when you can just walk out with it? <says all the SNAP people>

---

I expected a general negative response to this thread, but every once in a while this a reward for posting a "stretch" like this. Thanks for the chuckle.

Perplexity is built into their browser.
But I expect almost all AI companies will do this, it is a great way for them to mine what we would like to buy. Like I said in OP, not wild about the privacy implications, but I seem to be fighting a lost battle on this front.

https://www.perplexity.ai/comet

Not a rec as such; I haven't played with it yet.

From a libertarian perspective it wouldn't seem that difficult for Amazon (for example) to make using an AI shopper against their terms and conditions, and then enabling software barriers - I would think AI on one end could detect AI on the other. May something as simple as only allow sales on human timeframes, e.g. one per minute or something, that and limiting quantities.

Then again, if the seller doesn't care (e.g. Nvidia or a concert venue) then it's really no one else's business.

cecil77 said:

---

From a libertarian perspective it wouldn't seem that difficult for Amazon (for example) to make using an AI shopper against their terms and conditions, and then enabling software barriers - I would think AI on one end could detect AI on the other. May something as simple as only allow sales on human timeframes, e.g. one per minute or something, that and limiting quantities.

Then again, if the seller doesn't care (e.g. Nvidia or a concert venue) then it's really no one else's business.

---

Quite possibly right, but it seems to me that one very easy way to get into trouble is tying products together. From a monopolistic perspective. Only letting Amazon users use an Amazon agent could be a real problem. If I remember correctly, Microsoft Windows forcing IE/Edge was a nogo. Can't remember if it was just EU or here too.

So when the PS6 and new XBox comes out, you can forget ever owning one.

The thought of shopping bots isn't anything new. I have a shopping list of non urgent items I would like and I check historical price graphs and get alerts when there is a price drop.

lb3 said:

---

The thought of shopping bots isn't anything new. I have a shopping list of non urgent items I would like and I check historical price graphs and get alerts when there is a price drop.

---

What are you using to do this?

Camelcamelcamel is a good Amazon tracker.
There are lots of other niche sites like PC Part Picker that helps you spec new computers and gives you alerts when a pc component compatible with your build drops in price.

The market manipulation potential is going to be huge. Imagine AI buying versus AI real time personalized pricing.

How did you find out about it? Just Google searched for a price tracker bot?

Not sure where I found camelcamelcamel but probably stumbled across it looking for old Black Friday prices. AI can help you find these sites now.

TacoKitKat said:

---

BigRobSA said:

---

How does an AI help me when I just walk into Walmart or HEB and buy what I need/want?

I am not a lazy **** so I actually enter brick and mortars. I despise how lazy society has become.

---

You decry other's efficiency as laziness? Sometimes there's just better ways of doing things. You might miss out on some advancements with that attitude.

---

I don't think people hunkering deeper and deeper into their comfortable little hyper convenient shells is a "better" way of doing things. Humans are meant to be out and about.

As we continue to live lives that increasingly fly in the face of thousands of years of evolution, we will become more and more depressed and doped up.

Our children may not even ever experience the joy of getting your license and driving their own car...because society may deem that too reckless...with self-driving cars being the "better" way.

I am skeptical this changes much. Maybe some deals here or there, but bots buying large amounts of stuff right when it comes on sale needs capital (and storage if it is physical goods). There are characters out there doing stuff like this now. Lighting speed doesn't change that.

At the macro level, if I want something, there is no difference from me clicking "buy" myself or me asking my agentic bot to buy it. It is still one item, it's just timing.

At the micro level, there have been programs around to monopolize buying all of something the second it becomes available. Hell, someone even wrote one for reserviing golf tee times and a cabal of golfers at my club got together and kept reserving all the times for the first 4 hours every Saturday. We thought it was an "inside job" at the club but turns out they just had some hotshot programmer do it for them. This was like 7 years ago. Not new.

Speed may get a deal or two, then companies will wise up and jack the price up at the beginning and consumers using bots will get burned in some instances. I guess it might avoid Taylor Swift concert sales breaking the internet.

MouthBQ98 said:

---

The market manipulation potential is going to be huge. Imagine AI buying versus AI real time personalized pricing.

---

I think you're mostly going to see flash sales with some individual pricing the way HomeDepot prices their garden goods based on zip code.

Over_ed said:

---

cecil77 said:

---

From a libertarian perspective it wouldn't seem that difficult for Amazon (for example) to make using an AI shopper against their terms and conditions, and then enabling software barriers - I would think AI on one end could detect AI on the other. May something as simple as only allow sales on human timeframes, e.g. one per minute or something, that and limiting quantities.

Then again, if the seller doesn't care (e.g. Nvidia or a concert venue) then it's really no one else's business.

---

Quite possibly right, but it seems to me that one very easy way to get into trouble is tying products together. From a monopolistic perspective. Only letting Amazon users use an Amazon agent could be a real problem. If I remember correctly, Microsoft Windows forcing IE/Edge was a nogo. Can't remember if it was just EU or here too.

---

Same with tying OS's in the early 80s. However, this is different because using a shopping bot isn't a requirement.

And, quite frankly, they're just another tool to push products and increase sales.

Not sure how to respond to this. PerplexityAI is a close partner of Amazon's.