AI Tools for online shopping / price comparisons?

High-Performance Computing Machine Learning, LLMs, & AI
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1

I’ve been exploring practical, everyday applications of AI tools because I enjoy staying updated with cutting edge technologies.

Has anyone experimented with using AI tools to aid in online shopping research? I’ll present a few illustrative examples:

  1. Commodity product where the purchasing decision is based on unit price: For instance, I need paper towels for my home. I don’t mind the brand or specific SKU and usually buy them at stores like Target or Walmart. However, I’m open to Amazon, Whole Foods, and other stores that publish pricing on their websites. Could an AI tool query vendor websites to:

    • Pull pricing and product data for all products matching “paper towels”?
    • Assess the price per roll for each product?
    • Present the results of 2-3 products and their corresponding stores with the lowest unit price?

  2. Product where the purchasing decision is based on product specs/qualities/etc: For example, I need a pair of jeans. I’d like an AI tool to assist me in searching product listings from various clothing stores. In this case, it would be helpful to specify that I’m looking for light blue jeans, available in X size, and priced within a given budget. I would expect an AI tool to present me with somewhere in the range of 5-25 product options that fit my criteria and provide links to the product listings. This might be more challenging than scenario #1 unless I specify “check these specific vendors.”

I’ve tried scenario #1 with GPT‑4.1 mini (ChatGPT free) but got poor results. I’m open to paying for AI tools that save time or money daily. I’m less interested in paying to explore the features, but I’d consider subscribing for a month. I do have Gemini via my Google Workspace plan, but I haven’t used it much.

I’m curious to hear from the community if anyone has explored using AI tools to assist in shopping, either to save money by finding the least expensive product or to save time by efficiently finding a product that meets the given criteria.

2

I think the only part that AI is well suited for in the scenario described would be in identifying product names, descriptions and prices of product listings from a curated list of online stores and passing the selectors on to a traditional script.

Usually where traditional price aggregators fall short is in the number of sources because someone has to take the time to create a price scraper specific to each store then update it if/when the store changes layout.

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3

Interesting. Perhaps my idea is simply not feasible with today’s technology.

Given how capable AI tools are at some tasks, I am often left with the impression that their capability is greater than it is in reality.

4

With all the hype it’s hard not to.

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