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Jzushtoday at 7:50 PM19 repliesview on HN

Gross. This is just more proof that corporations simply don't know how to market AI. Everything is an ad for an ad at this point. The very first thing they show this new machine doing is helping people shop for clothes using AI.

No one is doing that, these people don't exist. No matter how hard corporate America wishes they did. This is why AI doesn't sell. This is why companies like Microsoft and Dell are pulling back on their AI claims and why Apple has nearly wiped it off their site all together, seriously go check out apple.com, not a single mention of Apple Intelligence.

At this point I'm convinced that marketing has been completely taken over by shareholder shills, marketing to customers they wish they had instead of the real customers that exist.


Replies

robbie-ctoday at 8:01 PM

Huh, I shopped for clothes using AI today.

Not super relevant to the Googlebook ad, but in case the perspective is interesting to you: I'm quite tall (194cm) but not very wide, so I usually struggle with buying clothes online. I used AI to scrape a bunch of clothing stores to see whether they sold a men's shirt with an LT or slim fit size, in stock, and matching a particular vibe.

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selectodudetoday at 8:23 PM

My wife got upset with me when I dns-blocked all the ads.

It sounds totally insane but we’re the minority here. That’s why Google is a $4.5 trillion company.

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AntiUSAbahtoday at 8:58 PM

Sry to say this, but I honestly just want a working shopping AI model.

I want to make a picture from me, add perhaps height and one or a second other metric, then i want it to generate styles for me, finetune it with me and then it helps me buy it.

I'm waiting for this for ages as i HATE shopping but I would find it nice to look better.

Nonetheless, when I saw this page for the first time, i was very impressed with the case not with anything related to softeware. Might be a second type of device which might be a good alternative to an apple product. Framework and now this (perhaps)

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canes123456today at 8:13 PM

Yes, I absolutely use AI To find stuff to buy. The results are mediocre but the alternatives are even worse. Google search for any product is SEO garbage. Reddit is somewhat useful for filled with astroturfing and tedious to get actual signal from. AI can summarize the Reddit recommendations and set filters to save time a bit.

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tyretoday at 8:13 PM

I’ve shopped with Claude a few times in the past month alone. It’s really quite good at finding brands I wouldn’t have otherwise.

It’s amazing how confident you are while being completely wrong. A pristine internet rant.

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parl_matchtoday at 8:01 PM

> No one is doing that, these people don't exist.

Unfortunately, they do. "Normie America" loves that shit. It's why they've been pushing it so hard: it's one of the few areas they're getting serious traction in day to day life.

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cromkatoday at 8:17 PM

Meanwhile i just tried to have Gemini AI on my Android read the screen to add an event to my calendar: it can't do it. It could, some year ago, which several articles wrote about. It no longer can.

God this is so annoying. The actual functionality we need is not there or is half-assed.

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dmixtoday at 8:05 PM

> This is why AI doesn't sell

My friend just bought a Pixel instead of an iPhone because it had better AI voice chat integration, he's non-technical and has been on iPhone as long as I remember

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littlecranky67today at 8:59 PM

As for the fact that corps like Apple backing out of AI marketing, it is because AI itself becomes a negatively connotated term that is no more associated with something great and pleasant - but has become a negaive term people associate with fear of job loss, uncertain future, high computer + RAM prices, rising retail electricity prices, AI slop spam etc etc. We basically approaching AI fatigue to the point of AI hatred - and you do no want to raise those feeling and have them associated with your brand. Apple gets that, others will follow suit.

This has btw. nothing to do wheter or not AI does actually have positive impact on society or not - it is the feelings that matter, not objective facts.

engeljohnbtoday at 8:00 PM

Sometimes I feel like there's no huge tech companies left* that remember: you're supposed to convince me to give you my money. I'm not just going to do it because you used the right trendy buzzwords.

*except maybe Valve.

bottlepalmtoday at 8:14 PM

It's like Meta advertising their AR glasses with it annotating prices over fruit at the grocery store - like why are you trying to sell me on some made up use case that doesn't even exist?

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sneaktoday at 8:54 PM

Every single Apple product page for a product that supports it mentions Apple Intelligence. You’re wrong.

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holoduketoday at 8:39 PM

I dont think you are right. In the near future every purchase and every offer request will go through AI. I imagine you request 1000 offers from similar companies for your product wish. No longer do I need to spend 1 week searching for a good priced painter for my house. My AI does it. Same for all other products. At the same time, companies at the other side need to adapt to this situation and have to use AI to handle the massive amount of requests. Requests can be a real offer. But also crawl results from AIs. The circle is complete. Google wins.

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Forgeties79today at 7:58 PM

Reminds me of all those facebook portal ads (was that the name?) showing kids talking to their grandparents all excited, or those ads where people point their phone at a thing (I think it's for Gemini?) and it pulls up the item to buy. I've literally never seen someone do that, and I have some insufferably-obsessed-with-AI people in my life who try to use it for everything.

Yeah anecdotal, but it just doesn't strike me as how people shop.

wg0today at 8:32 PM

Google's product managers live on another planet. Whole Google Stadia fiasco comes to mind. Imagine the claims - real time 4k 60fps gaming over Internet. Went through acquiring game studios. Designed their own controller. A year later - nothing.

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ai-xtoday at 8:15 PM

HN is not the target market.

In fact, if HN hates it, there is a higher chance the product will be successful

Will Bookmark it so that it becomes one of those legendary HN quotes

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andrepdtoday at 8:32 PM

You know what they say: there are only two industries now, fraud and gambling.

zulbantoday at 8:30 PM

"This is why AI doesn't sell."

There are several AI companies now with billions in yearly revenue that didn't even exist a few years ago. Many more with many millions in revenue. Saying AI doesn't sell is completely delusional. You're in an anti-AI bubble.