Opening Scene
The Shift in Motion
You open ChatGPT and type: “What are the best running shoes?”
Eight options appear, sleek and convincing, each tagged at $120. Your neighbour asks the same question an hour later. The same eight shoes appear, but priced at $95.
Neither of you will ever know.
The product hasn't changed. The retailer hasn't changed. The only difference is what the machine believes you are willing to pay.
This is the invisible evolution of digital commerce, where AI doesn't just personalise your feed, it personalises your reality.
The Insight
What's Really Happening
Behind the curtain, algorithms are quietly negotiating with your wallet.
Dynamic pricing is nothing new; airlines, ride-hailing apps, and hotel chains have used it for years. But what's emerging now is personalised pricing, powered by AI systems that analyse not just the market, but you.
In 2024, Delta Airlines confirmed its use of machine learning to generate “a price available to you, the individual.” That phrase, friendly, almost innocent, hides a deeper truth: AI is no longer priced by segment, but by psychology.
The US Federal Trade Commission has warned that retailers are now using behavioural data, even mouse movements and dwell time, to determine how committed a customer might be to purchase. If your cursor hesitates, if your scroll slows, the system adjusts the price accordingly.
Research from Carnegie Mellon University found that even when algorithms don't intend to discriminate, they still drive prices upward on average. Their goal isn't fairness; it's revenue.
A Netflix study revealed that when pricing is based on browsing behaviour rather than demographics, profitability can rise by a factor of 52.
And then there's ChatGPT, a platform with over 700 million users freely sharing their commercial intent every month. It knows your tone, your urgency, your budget, and your habits. It knows whether you search at 3 pm or 3 am, whether you ask once or ten times. In short, it understands your economic psychology better than any retailer ever has.
You're not being sold to. You're being modelled.
The Strategic Shift
Why It Matters for Business
This isn't just a shift in pricing. It's a redefinition of value itself.
In the last decade, digital transformation was about personalisation, using data to tailor messages, recommendations, and experiences. The next era is algorithmic commerce, where AI systems act as autonomous market-makers, dynamically balancing what a business can charge with what a customer can tolerate.
It's the commercial manifestation of the agentic web, where AIs act not only as assistants, but as intermediaries, brokers, and negotiators.
For brands, this creates both opportunity and risk:
- Opportunity, because revenue can scale infinitely with precision. You're no longer guessing at elasticity; you're predicting it in real time.
- Risk, because the same system that optimises for margin may erode trust.
When price becomes subjective, transparency becomes currency.
Consumers have grown accustomed to personalisation that feels beneficial: “This product suits me.” But they will resist personalisation that feels manipulative, “this price exploits me.”
The competitive advantage won't go to the company with the smartest algorithm, but to the one that uses it responsibly.
Leaders must now design ethical pricing architectures, systems that explain, not conceal, their decisions. Because in an AI-mediated economy, the line between optimisation and exploitation is perilously thin.
The Human Dimension
Reframing the Relationship
You used to shop. Now, you're being priced.
When you ask ChatGPT about shoes, hotels, flights, or skincare, you're not browsing; you're revealing. Every query is a confession of intent. Every hesitation is a data point. Every late-night purchase is a behavioural fingerprint that teaches the system how to approach you next time.
For 700 million people, these interactions have become routine, almost invisible. We speak candidly with AI because it feels neutral, but it's anything but.
AI doesn't just remember what you said. It infers why you said it.
That's where the power lies: not in what's collected, but in what's deduced.
And so the consumer–brand relationship changes. You no longer compare prices across shelves or sites because there are no shelves, no static prices, no baseline to check. The marketplace has dissolved into a set of personalised micro-realities, each calibrated to maximise yield without alerting you that you're the variable.
It's the perfect market, efficient, opaque, and utterly unaccountable.
The Takeaway
What Happens Next
AI has solved capitalism's oldest puzzle: the gap between what something is worth and what someone will pay.
That efficiency comes at a cost. The more perfectly the system prices, the less visible the system becomes, and the less human agency remains.
For leaders, this moment demands restraint, not exuberance. Use AI to optimise, but also to illuminate. Build transparency into pricing logic. Treat trust as part of your product design.
Because once customers realise the game, they'll look for brands that play fair.
In the end, the question isn't how perfectly AI can price, but whether your customers will still believe they chose to buy.
