Comment by weitendorf

Try asking it to find a good deal for you for <item> across multiple sites. Then tell it to use the browser to navigate through the two most promising sites to confirm pricing and availability, and prepare comprehensive breakdown with its findings.

People shop a lot on the internet, actually. Between that and ads for the things people shop for, it’s pretty much the backbone of the Internet economy.

I bet they would purchase more things than they currently do, and seriously break the economics of Google/Amazon search ads (about $300B of yearly spending just for those two), display ads, and internet-first e-commerce sites if they could just ask an agent working for them to help research/source/purchase things without all the navigation and dark patterns in the middle. Personally I would probably spend at least $1k/yr more on snack/beverage subscriptions alone if it had less friction.

> working class peasant consumer

You mean the majority of people in the world? Most people only their computers to entertain themselves, look things up, buy stuff, and complete tedious tasks (taxes, email, etc) they’d rather not do.

How much do you and your peers spend a year on online shopping and how much do they pay out of pocket for SAAS or AI tokens? And how many of your offline purchases had a significant amount of associated online research involved despite technically completing offline? (Houses, cars, schools, hardware) Yeah that’s pretty much where all the money in the global software industry comes from