This isn’t talking about price gouging. Or at least, not that second part of the title. The full quote is:
“when customers engage with Sparky, their average order value jumps 40%.”
This is talking about ignorant customers getting talked into adding more to their order than they originally planned, by an AI that is designed to encourage people to buy as much as possible. Walmart isn’t changing the price of products that are ordered through the AI tool.
Still shitty behavior but it’s just another marketing tool and marketing has been finding ways to influence customers to buy more things since the dawn of time.
A far more concerning quote from the article for me would be:
Walmart has filed a patent for technology that can unmask anonymous cell phone data after a single store visit, then track where shoppers live, how they commute to work, and what restaurants they frequent
So the second part of the title is completely irrelevant and misleading because it implies that they are literally inflating prices by 40% using AI right now.
This isn’t talking about price gouging. Or at least, not that second part of the title. The full quote is:
This is talking about ignorant customers getting talked into adding more to their order than they originally planned, by an AI that is designed to encourage people to buy as much as possible. Walmart isn’t changing the price of products that are ordered through the AI tool.
Still shitty behavior but it’s just another marketing tool and marketing has been finding ways to influence customers to buy more things since the dawn of time.
A far more concerning quote from the article for me would be:
The article is not about the AI piece, though it does mention it. It is about Walmart’s groundwork efforts to pave the way for price gouging.
So the second part of the title is completely irrelevant and misleading because it implies that they are literally inflating prices by 40% using AI right now.
It is clunky but the double slash indicates they are two very separate sentences.
Double slash has no special meaning in English. That’s a programming thing.
Yeah just OP sloppily trying to square leg / round hole this in this community.