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Last month, Google updated its home page to replace its iconic “Search” button with various AI features.
The move was the latest sign of the tech giant succumbing to the draw of AI that remains deeply flawed — and the staggering amount of misinformation that comes along with it.
Even the experience of shopping online is starting to look dramatically different, and consumers may be paying the price. According to a recent experiment by e-commerce SEO company Productrise, the same exact products are showing up as 21.6 percent more expensive on average in Google AI Mode compared to a traditional search.
It’s a thorny topic as lawmakers ponder whether to intervene as companies are increasingly using AI tools to analyze consumers’ personal data to tailor price tags in real time, a controversial practice called “surveillance pricing.” While Productrise’s experiment doesn’t necessarily prove that Google is discriminating on price by using the wealth of data it has on users, the discrepancy raises plenty of questions over how AI Mode arrives at its recommendations — and why prices appear to differ compared to regular search.
“While we haven’t verified the accuracy of the claims in this report, all shopping results on Google Search, including AI Mode and the search results page, are powered by the same data source: our Shopping Graph,” Google told us. “Shoppers can easily click into a product listing to compare prices for that product across retailers and choose the best option for them.”
Beyond showing a higher price for the same exact product, the study also found that AI Mode listings are far more visible to users, sitting “49 percent higher than traditional search listings.” The primary vendor for the same exact product differed just under 50 percent of the time between the two modes, suggesting AI Mode is prioritizing a strikingly different — and less budget-oriented — group of sellers.
“This is a fascinating study that reveals more about Google’s Shopping Graph and the inconsistencies between classic search and AI Mode for free listing placements,” said independent SEO consultant Brodie Clark in a statement shared by Productrise.
However, whether consumers are actually willing to pay those higher prices is a different matter. Many, the research found, are clicking past the AI feature to find the actual best value.
“While the higher price might be displayed within the grid result in AI Mode (making the top-level comparison less accurate), what we tend to see is that the retailer with the lowest price gets the click in the end,” Clark explained.
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