Astro Hacker News - The Reasons Agentic Commerce Hasn't Taken Off Yet

vrighter |next [-]

Because I don't want to order toilet paper and accidentaly have a monster-cock ordered instead

kevinfee |next |previous [-]

Would love to know if any of you all have used an agent to make a purchase, and if so, how it went?

If you haven't I would love to know why not and if I missed any reasons why people aren't using it yet.

Thanks!

andsoitis |root |parent |next [-]

Have you used agents to buy stuff on your behalf? What things have you bought in this way?

And what are things you bought but decided to do yourself rather than use and agent?

kevinfee |root |parent [-]

For consumers like me, I don't want to have to put the same 25 things I buy every week in my grocery order. It is always a hassle. If there is a group of 10 people ordering food it is a pain in the ass to put everyones order in.

For businesses, AI agents cost less than people. Companies all have people working in accounts payable. Also, at businesses when a employee needs a new piece of software, they often have to request the seat. If the company needs to buy more seats, someone has to do that. Buying one more seat is a simple activity yet someone is being paid $70K plus to do taht from the IT department.

andsoitis |root |parent [-]

Sorry, let me clarify. I'm not asking theoretically. I am asking what YOU have personally bought using an agent? And what you decided to buy yourself rather than using an agent.

Perhaps that gives you a clue as to market opportunity.

UncleMeat |root |parent |previous [-]

I have never done this.

The amount of time that I spend making digital purchases is low. Having an agent do things wouldn't save me much time even if I could completely trust it. I would still need to interact with this agent for item selection and I'd need to babysit it for correctness. For things that I buy regularly basically every service has an option for regular purchases.

I genuinely cannot conceive of a circumstance where having an agent make purchases for me would improve my life.

kevinfee |root |parent [-]

That is a fair critique. If you don't spend much time buying things and/or enjoy shopping, then there isn't any need/pain point there.

I think there are a group of consumers out there that do have a pain point in that there are things they want/need to buy and hate the shopping part of it. I know I fall into that category. The issue with the regular/recurring purchases is it needs to be exactly the same thing/amount on a regular time interval. For me at least, I either end up stacking up more than what I need or run out before it gets there.

I think the business demand is a completely other beast in an of itself. Ranging from solopreneurs/small companies who have agents running a all or part of their business to big business wanting to replace the people in the accounts payable department.

UncleMeat |root |parent [-]

I still don't understand even a little. Are you saying that your agents are making product selection for you? Like you say "buy me a carpet cleaner" and it just goes and orders one using your credit card without any oversight?

andsoitis |previous [-]

Promotional blog post trying to sell you their product.

kevinfee |root |parent [-]

This is probably one of the least promotional blog posts on this website. This gives many people valuable information about the state of agentic commerce and offers a solution to many of the problems.