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https://theconversation.com/until-now-sellers-have-used-ai-to-get-the-best-deal-for-themselves-those-tables-are-about-to-turn-216620>
"It’s no accident we are seeing record profits from some of our biggest
consumer-facing companies, among them Qantas andthe big four banks.
They are among the firms - alongside our grocery duopoly - investing the most
in artificial intelligence in the form of data analytics and machine learning.
Their investments include staff – often hundreds of data scientists – plus
information technology systems and external consultants.
It isn’t cheap, and ultimately much of it will be paid for by customers.
While some of the initiatives target costs by improving planning and reducing
waste and fraud and theft, most target revenue via marketing and
personalisation with the aim of getting the best deals to the customers who
insist on them and the worst deals to the customers who will buy anyway.
To the extent that these firms are successful in charging different prices to
different customers, it’s a fair bet they are keeping up the cost of living.
In simpler times, only a few customers needed to do the hard yakka of comparing
the prices displayed in shops or on websites and voting with their feet in
order to force sellers to keep published prices in check for everyone.
Now, there’s often no such thing as a single published price.
Booking a holiday now comes with a bewildering set of frequent flyer rules,
hotel loyalty programs, credit card points, cashback offers, possibly buy-now
pay-later options, and vouchers and coupons sprinkled across social media."
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
