Social commerce – that is, shopping through platforms like TikTok and Instagram – hasn’t been a huge hit in the U.S., in part because of lingering distrust among tech giants among consumers and gigantic retailers. To prevent AI initiatives from encountering similar resistance, major payment processors like Visa and software startups like Up-to-date Generation that support stores develop or work with chatbots are trying to negotiate technical trade-offs with retail partners. “We believe that a service provider like us will gain the trust of retailers faster, which is quite important,” says Adam Behrens, CEO of Up-to-date Generation.
Retailers want this because chatbots have become a key tool for consumers to research and approve purchases. Partnerships between artificial intelligence and e-commerce companies could ensure that chatbots not only present right product information but also exploit less computing resources when fulfilling online orders. All of this could escalate profits for both sides if they manage to reach an agreement.
In one of the most candid comments on agent shopping from a top tech executive, Amazon CEO Andy Jassy recently criticized the way agent shopping currently works on other platforms. “I would say the customer experience is not good,” Jassy said last month on an earnings call. “There is no personalization. There is no purchase history. Delivery estimates are often wrong. Prices are often wrong. We need to find a way to provide customers with a better service and the right exchange of value.”
A task as basic as adding eggs to an Amazon cart took Opera’s AI agent 45 seconds in a WIRED test this month; doing it manually in Amazon’s shopping app took a third of the time.
Opera invites potential partners to workshops to consider security and design decisions. “If our agent doesn’t work with the biggest websites that people use, it’s not going to be an optimal experience,” says Per Wetterdal, executive vice president who leads Opera’s commercial partnerships. “No one will benefit if [a purchase] goes to the wrong place or in the wrong quantity.”
Contract talks
As is often the case in the technology industry, money and data play a key role in negotiations. Thanks to agent purchasing, financial exchanges can be basic. Artificial intelligence companies, including Opera, want sales cuts to make shopping easier. “If we do something that increases growth, it will be very fair to be compensated for it,” says Wetterdal. OpenAI shows the way forward by collecting what it describes “a small fee” from partners like Etsy for instant checkout purchases.
But data sharing can be more complicated. Retailers guard pricing and availability data, as well as customer information, to maintain a competitive advantage. Artificial intelligence companies want to protect conversation histories to preserve the sense of intimacy that chatbots can provide. However, chatbots require real-time information to fulfill user requests, and retail brands prefer more context to develop relationships with shoppers.