Scott Shuey · · 6 min readAI to cart away ecommerce shoppers?
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Hello reader,
Last week, I engaged in some light “prompt polluting.”
See, my wife sometimes hops on my ChatGPT account – instead of using her own – to keep hers “just for work.”
In response, I add my own little twists to her prompts. When she researches new fashion, for example, she also gets TikTok’s latest top 10 teen makeup suggestions.
For some reason, my wife does not always appreciate my humor.
What’s funny is that ChatGPT sometimes seems to catch on to what is going on and tells us – somewhat obliquely – that it doesn’t want to get involved in our little territorial disputes.
The indirectness and evasive nature of its answer really annoy me, and it doesn’t just end there.
One time, I wanted to look into the subject of today’s first Big Story – agentic commerce – and find out if this tech is actively being used in Southeast Asia. So, I asked ChatGPT.
Image credit: Arsal Ysfin
The correct answer is: “No, no one uses it here. Using agentic AI to shop directly with brands is still a very new concept and just getting underway in the US.”
However, here’s what it said: “Yes – in principle, you can buy things in Southeast Asia using agentic commerce.”
It wasn’t a hallucination – just unasked-for attitude. This machine was trying to “lawyer” me.
Yes, the tech is possible, just not available – yet. I can’t believe people want to chat with this thing.
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