Google's AI Shopping Recommendations Come with a Pricey Bias

A study by Productrise has uncovered an unexpected bias in Google's AI shopping recommendations. The researchers compared millions of AI-generated and classic search product suggestions, revealing that items recommended by AI were significantly more expensive than those from traditional Google Search.

Across over 100,000 searches, comparing both Google's AI Mode and classic search results, Productrise studied over 2 million individual recommended products. The results showed that on average, products featured by AI Mode were 49% more expensive than those shown in classic search.

The vast majority of recommended items were different between AI Mode and classic search, with only 1.28% of the time both modes suggesting the same product. Even then, in nearly 50% of cases, AI Mode picked a different seller, charging on average 21.6% more.

Google confirmed that both AI Mode and classic search pull from the same database, known as the Shopping Graph. However, the researchers' findings raise questions about what criteria Google's AI uses to select products for recommendation.