Shop with AI Mode

Google's new "Shop with AI Mode" announcement is...kind of like the inverse announcement that ChatGPT made a few weeks ago.

ChatGPT: Hey Google
Google: Sup.
ChatGPT: We're adding shopping results in our AI responses.
Google: Oh yeah?
ChatGPT: Yeah.
Google: Well, we're adding AI responses to our shopping results.
ChatGPT: So we're like, the same thing now?
Google: No! I do email. And video. And other stuff.
ChatGPT: For now...haha.

Kidding aside...I'm a bit saddened about this news. Not because I'm a tech laggard and long for the "good ol' days" of horrible query matching and ridiculous results.

No.

I'm sad because I think Google's move is locking me into the person I used to be.

We grow.
We wander.
We evolve.

I used to be obsessed with the NBA. Now I couldn’t care less.
I used to get up and run at 5am every morning. Now I run in the afternoons.
I used to love space operas (Foundation, anyone?). Now I watch Wes Anderson.
I once wore nothing but graphic tees. Okay, I still do that.

But you get the point. That person I was 2, 3, 4 years ago...I'm not him anymore.

Google AI Mode assumes that who you were is who you'll always be. It's the death of serendipity. In this new world:
👉 You don't stumble onto a brand by accident.
👉 You don't see what your neighbor sees.
👉 You don't get a glimpse of the unfamiliar.

You get what the algorithm thinks you'll like.
👉 Over and over and over again.
👉 This creates echo chambers of taste.
👉 Not just in politics or news, but in fashion, food, ideas, lifestyles.

It's algorithmic homophily.

We lose our curiosity, those subtle nudges that broaden, not narrow, our tastes. We lose our contradiction-ness, that unfinished-ness of who we are.

Google's AI mode simplifies that complexity in the name of "helpfulness." But in doing so, it risks stripping away the most human part of the internet: discovery.

👉 Let's build systems that don't just predict who people are.
👉 Let's build ones that make space for who we might become.