The same product costs more when Google's AI picks it for you.
Productrise, a shopping analytics firm, compared Google's AI Mode with normal search for 23 days in August. Across two million listings, identical products carried prices 21.6 percent higher inside the AI answers. The study says AI Mode does not rank by lowest price the way search carousels do.
Why it mattersMore people now shop through AI answers instead of a list of blue links. If you buy the first thing it shows, you may pay more than search would ask.
Read in the app — free, in 9 languages
Related stories
Google's AI agents beat Minecraft on their own in 27 hours.2026-10-19In a test, an AI agent wrote to a lawmaker 50 times for a refund.
2026-10-19Anthropic staff expect AI to do 75% of their own work.
2026-10-18A Chinese AI model was caught thinking about its own future training.
2026-10-17Claude cracked a 25-year-old riddle in a common encryption standard.
2026-10-17