{"id":257131,"date":"2026-05-27T15:15:00","date_gmt":"2026-05-27T19:15:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/27\/ai-pricing-isnt-the-enemy-consumers-think-it-is\/"},"modified":"2026-05-27T15:35:11","modified_gmt":"2026-05-27T19:35:11","slug":"ai-pricing-isnt-the-enemy-consumers-think-it-is","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/2026\/05\/27\/ai-pricing-isnt-the-enemy-consumers-think-it-is\/","title":{"rendered":"AI Pricing Isn\u2019t the Enemy Consumers Think It Is"},"content":{"rendered":"

AI Pricing Isn\u2019t the Enemy Consumers Think It Is<\/a><\/p>\n

https:\/\/www.pymnts.com\/news\/artificial-intelligence\/2026\/ai-pricing-is-not-enemy-consumers-think-it-is\/<\/a><\/p>\n

Publish Date: 2026-05-27 15:15:00<\/a><\/p>\n

Source Domain: www.pymnts.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Regulators, retailers and consumer watchdogs have raised alarms over artificial intelligence-powered pricing systems, warning that the algorithms work against buyers.<\/p>\n

New research from the University of Pennsylvania and Rutgers Business School suggested the picture is more complicated. In many competitive markets, dynamic pricing moves prices lower, not higher.<\/p>\n

The Finding That Cuts Against the Consensus<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Prices on online marketplaces are often set by algorithms that adjust based on what rivals charge and how much sellers bid for visibility in search results. Their growing use has drawn warnings from regulators who worry the systems learn to move in lockstep, pushing prices above competitive levels. In March, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform opened an inquiry into AI-driven pricing across consumer-facing industries.<\/p>\n

Ron Berman of the University of Pennsylvania and Hangcheng Zhao of Rutgers Business School found that picture incomplete. Drawing on data from nearly 2,400 product searches conducted repeatedly on Amazon, the study found that prices fall in categories where algorithmic pricing is widespread and shoppers consider fewer options before buying. The dataset covered more than 2 million products and over 1 million daily price observations.<\/p>\n

\u201cA lot of research assumes this is bad for consumers, that algorithms collude on prices and weaken competition,\u201d Berman said, per a Tuesday (May 26) Knowledge at Wharton report.<\/p>\n

The Ad Auction at the Center of It<\/strong><\/h2>\n

The mechanism is not price competition itself but the advertising layer beneath it, according to the report. Sellers bid for prominent placement in search results. Those bids feed directly into margins and, by extension, into the prices shoppers see. Berman and Zhao found that instead of driving prices up, algorithms end up moving together to push advertising bids lower, cutting merchants\u2019 costs and feeding through into lower prices for buyers.<\/p>\n

Advertisement: Scroll to Continue<\/p>\n

That…<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AI Pricing Isn\u2019t the Enemy Consumers Think It Is https:\/\/www.pymnts.com\/news\/artificial-intelligence\/2026\/ai-pricing-is-not-enemy-consumers-think-it-is\/ Publish Date: 2026-05-27 15:15:00 Source…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":257132,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/www.pymnts.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/05\/AI-pricing-retail-eCommerce.jpeg","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-257131","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257131"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=257131"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257131\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":257133,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/257131\/revisions\/257133"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/257132"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257131"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=257131"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news-you-need.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=257131"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}