Why Agentic AI Shopping feels unnatural and doesn’t endanger search engine optimization

Google, OpenAI and Shopify insist that the next revolution in AI is agentic AI shopping agents. Shopping is a lucrative area for AI to delve into. What always comes to mind is that shopping is an extremely important activity for humans; It’s literally part of our DNA. Is the general public willing to give up the shopping experience?

Agentic AI Shopping is like a personal assistant that you tell what you want and maybe why you need it, as well as some features and a price range. The AI ​​will do the research, comparison and even make the purchase.

In this scenario, no human is conducting a search. So it’s not necessarily good for SEO unless you’re optimizing shopping pages for AI shoppers in action.

Shopping is part of human biology

Scientists say shopping is literally a part of our DNA. Our desire to hunt, gather, and display our ability to succeed is part of the evolutionary competition in which we participate (whether we know it or not).

A Wikipedia page on the subject explains:

“Richard Dawkins describes in The Selfish Gene (1976) that humans are machines made of genes and that genes are the basis for everything humans do.

…Therefore, everything people do depends on thriving in their environment and standing out from the competition, including how people consume to survive in their environment by simply meeting the basic physiological needs of food, water, and warmth. People also consume to distinguish themselves from others, for example through conspicuous consumption, in which a luxury car represents money and a high social status…”

This means that, whether we know it or not, our urge to buy is part of an evolutionary competition between ourselves. Part of this is signaling our status and attractiveness for reproduction. So when we buy clothes or toilet paper, part of our genetic programming is to feel good about it.

Shopping and the brain’s chemical cocktail

And when it comes to feeling good, part of it is triggered by chemicals like dopamine, endorphins, and serotonin, which reward you for finding a good deal.

Even a deal on toilet paper can trigger reward signals in the brain.

Another Wikipedia page about the biology of our reward system explains:

“Reward is the attractive and motivating quality of a stimulus that elicits appetitive behavior, also known as approach behavior and consummatory behavior. A rewarding stimulus has been described as “any stimulus, object, event, activity, or situation that has the potential to cause us to approach and consume it.”

A sale sign in a store can serve as a reward cue because it signals a lower price or added value, which can encourage someone to walk up to it and purchase it. The sign itself is just information, but if a person recognizes the discount or offer as beneficial, it can trigger motivation to take action. This is a deeply rooted behavior that we carry within us.

We are like machines programmed in our genes to shop.

So this begs the question: Why would anyone delegate this highly rewarding activity to an AI agent? It’s like delegating the enjoyment of chocolate to a robot.

I suspect that most of you reading this know which supermarkets sell the best products at the cheapest prices, which have the tastiest bread and which markets have the best spices. This is our programming; it is organic. There is no point in delegating the rewards associated with discovery or acquisition to an AI shopping agent.

Chance and shopping

Serendipity is when things happen randomly and unplanned, but still lead to a happy outcome or benefit. One of the joys of shopping is coming across something that is cheap, beautiful, or of some other value. Using an AI agent causes people to miss out on the serendipitous joy of discovering something they weren’t looking for that is not only desirable, but also something they didn’t know they needed.

For example, I bought a birthday present for my wife. I walked into a gift shop run by a charming new age hippie. We talked about music while I browsed the gifts for sale. I found something, two things, that I didn’t really want to buy. The two things had a semantic connection to each other, which I found to be poetic and therefore particularly beautiful as a gift. The shop owner packed the two items into two boxes and then put the boxes in a pretty mesh gift bag with a bow.

This is coincidence in action. It was a pleasant moment that I enjoyed. I left the store in the sunshine with a fresh cocktail of dopamine, endorphins and serotonin flooding my brain, and it was a glorious moment. I bought a gift that I was sure my wife would like.

Agentic AI shopping is unnatural

My question is: Why does Silicon Valley think it can automate the many things that make us human?

It’s like Silicon Valley is trying to turn us into teenagers by doing the things adults normally do.

Now they want to take away our shopping?

I think agent AI only has a chance of working if it builds a sense of chance and discovery into the system. I’ve been part of the tech scene for over 25 years, living in the internet capital of the world in San Francisco and even working for a time at a leading tech magazine.

So it’s not that I’m a fan of technology. Integrating AI into a shopping site makes a lot of sense. It can make recommendations and answer questions. That’s great. There is still a person who clicks around and discovers things for themselves in a way that satisfies their natural urge to shop and consume. This is good for SEO because it means a store needs to be optimized for search.

It makes less sense for AI agents to do the shopping for humans because it is unnatural and goes against our biology.

Featured image from Shutterstock/Prostock-studio