AI Pricing: Your Face, Your Price?: transcript

The tag on the shelf

0:00, on YouTube The stories about stores putting little screens where the price tags used to be are all over the news. Everyone keeps asking if this will push prices up. But what about whose price it is? We are not talking about a coupon in your app. Walmart is putting these screens on every shelf in the country by the end of this year, and they change from a back office, in a second. Some stores already have cameras at the door that know your face. And from what has been reported, Walmart holds patents on using what it knows about a shopper to set a price. Nobody has put those pieces together yet, at least not that we know of.

Every shelf, one switch

Known at the door

Two systems, one step apart

0:43, on YouTube But it's easy to speculate. The camera sees Dave walk in on a Tuesday night, the system knows he buys the same coffee every week, and the shelf has his price ready before he gets to the aisle, a little higher than it was this morning. Think about it. The paper sticker showed the same price to everybody who walked by. The screen can show something different to the man standing in front of it. So how would you ever catch it? You cannot compare your price to the guy next to you, because he is looking at his own screen. The store knows what it charged each of you, but you never will.

The price resets

Sticker, then screen

Two registers

1:20, on YouTube I'm Guillermo, and this is my AI clone.