# ai shopping (blogs) — RSS Amplifier Recent posts from the 2 feeds in the RSS Amplifier directory that cover ai shopping. Page: Feed: --- ## [Not Everything Needs a Knowledge Graph](https://roelwillems.com/not-everything-needs-a-knowledge-graph/) _2026-07-21 · Roel Willems · Roel Willems_ A loyalty migration made data more accurate and much harder to use. The only thing standing between the numbers and a bad decision was someone who remembered the change. That safeguard was never in a system, and it's exactly the context your AI can't inherit. ## [Can You Produce the List?](https://roelwillems.com/can-you-produce-the-list/) _2026-07-13 · Roel Willems · Roel Willems_ Boards heard "delay" and moved AI governance down the priority list. The fact remains that EU AI Act obligations arriving first did not move at all. And the list of systems those rules touch? Producing it is not the hard part. Keeping it true is. ## [The Ground Under EU-US Data Transfers Just Shifted](https://roelwillems.com/the-ground-under-eu-us-data-transfers-just-shifted/) _2026-07-06 · Roel Willems · Roel Willems_ On 29 June 2026, the Supreme Court's Slaughter ruling cracked the legal basis for EU-US data transfers. It's not a verdict, it's a warning with lead time. Why "your data stays in the EU" and "we don't store it" answer a narrower question than the one you're actually asking. ## [Better at What?](https://roelwillems.com/better-at-what/) _2026-07-02 · Roel Willems · Roel Willems_ A senior colleague found a model eighty percent better than anything she'd used all year. Better at what, though? And in your own work, how would you know if the next version quietly lost it? You work through the same chat box daily with almost no view of what the model behind it can do. ## [Whose Model Is It Anyway?](https://roelwillems.com/whose-model-is-it-anyway/) _2026-06-24 · Roel Willems · Roel Willems_ A senior colleague found the best model she'd used all year. A day later, an export directive switched it off for everyone. She went back to Opus and kept working. But what happens when the model that vanishes isn't helping a person, and is instead running a process the business can't switch off? ## [Do You Know What Good Looks Like?](https://roelwillems.com/do-you-know-what-good-looks-like/) _2026-06-15 · Roel Willems · Roel Willems_ The most capable AI model on the market just disappeared overnight, and the conversation is all about power. But how powerful the model is matters far less than whether you can tell good output from bad. And that gap doesn't close with better models. It widens. ## [What Every Leader Needs to Know About AI Progress](https://roelwillems.com/what-every-leader-needs-to-know-about-ai-progress/) _2026-05-18 · Roel Willems · Roel Willems_ AI is being sold as a uniformly transformative force. The reality is more nuanced. The most impressive gains come from one domain, driven by years of focused engineering. Here's what that means for your AI strategy and the questions every leader should be asking. ## [Who Owns the Middle?](https://roelwillems.com/who-owns-the-middle/) _2026-05-11 · Roel Willems · Roel Willems_ A project needs product data from another part of the organization. The data exists, but the definitions don't match. So the project team fixes it: just enough, just for this use case. Each fix makes perfect sense in isolation. From an organizational perspective, it's penny-wise, pound-foolish. ## [Online is fragile](https://binaryribbons01111011.bearblog.dev/online-is-fragile/) _2026-05-08 · binaryribbons01111011 · binary ribbons 🎀_ Today I opened my university's Canvas and attempted to take a quiz. The quiz did not load. Instead, I saw a ransom note from the hackers who have been attacking Canvas. Frustrated, I watched the due date of my quiz come and go with no way to submit anything. It isn't even guaranteed I'll be able to submit the last coursework and exams I have this semester, since it isn't clear when the attack will… ## [What Are You Actually Optimizing For?](https://roelwillems.com/what-are-you-actually-optimizing-for/) _2026-05-04 · Roel Willems · Roel Willems_ Most organizations can't answer a simple question: what are you actually optimizing for? With agentic AI, leaving it unanswered has consequences that are faster, bigger, and harder to reverse than anyone anticipated. ## [Refer a Friend, Earn Rewards (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/QG1whk5XxY8j) _2026-05-04 · **Sponsored**_ Earn rewards when friends get the Graphite Business Card through your referral. ## [Rethinking AI's Impact on Your Value Chain](https://roelwillems.com/rethinking-ais-impact-on-your-value-chain/) _2026-04-28 · Roel Willems · Roel Willems_ Most AI thought leadership falls into two camps: hype or prediction. But there's a more relevant frame: the economics of viability. What's currently too expensive to do in your industry that becomes a real option when AI changes the cost equation? And what does that unlock? ## [I won't watch short form videos.](https://binaryribbons01111011.bearblog.dev/i-wont-watch-short-form-videos/) _2026-04-27 · binaryribbons01111011 · binary ribbons 🎀_ I never downloaded TikTok and never will. I blocked all YouTube Shorts from my desktop homepage, recommendations, and search. I do not use Youtube on my phone (where it's difficult to block Shorts.) If someone is playing Shorts on a TV I will physically leave the room. When I noticed I was opening Reels when I went on Instagram, I deleted the app, then my account. Same with Snapchat; when I kept… ## [Maybe the AI Shopping Agent won't have your best interests in mind](https://binaryribbons01111011.bearblog.dev/maybe-the-ai-shopping-agent-wont-have-your-best-interests-in-mind/) _2026-04-23 · binaryribbons01111011 · binary ribbons 🎀_ I keep seeing takes about how AI shopping agents will help kill the sectors of the economy that extract money by adding enough friction to experiences that people are willing to pay more to avoid the annoyance. If this ends up coming completely true, it'll probably be a good thing (for consumers at least.) Running an AI model is far from cheap. Yet, many people have already gotten used to having… ## [Freedom from Distraction](https://binaryribbons01111011.bearblog.dev/freedom-from-distraction/) _2026-04-20 · binaryribbons01111011 · binary ribbons 🎀_ My Phone: A Success Story (for now) My iPhone home screen is text-only, with shortcuts to tools I use. I don't have a single distracting app installed. My screen is always in grayscale. I have Screen Time set on potential distractions, most notably Safari, and my dad has the password so I can't just disable restrictions. (I wonder how he felt when I asked him to set a password after years of… ## [Why the Most Valuable Data Skill Isn't Technical](https://roelwillems.com/why-the-most-valuable-data-skill-isnt-technical/) _2026-04-20 · Roel Willems · Roel Willems_ The data professionals who consistently deliver outcomes aren't the ones with the strongest technical skills. They're the ones who understand how value moves through the organization. Most data problems are adaptive challenges that organizations keep treating with technical fixes. ## [Being Advertised To](https://binaryribbons01111011.bearblog.dev/being-advertised-to/) _2026-04-19 · binaryribbons01111011 · binary ribbons 🎀_ A few years ago, I used Pinterest. These days, I hear Pinterest is full of AI slop , but back when I used it, it was "real" content. My main goal in using Pinterest was improving my personal style. I was never really into fashion, but for some reason I've forgotten (end of quarantine? high school?) I wanted to change that. I had heard in the past that Pinterest was great for putting together… ## [The Data Visibility Gap: AI's Most Overlooked Bottleneck](https://roelwillems.com/the-data-visibility-gap-ais-most-overlooked-bottleneck/) _2026-04-13 · Roel Willems · Roel Willems_ A few years ago, I watched a product recommender start behaving oddly. The model was fine. The pipelines were fine. What had changed was something nobody on the data science team knew about. That moment showed me something I now see everywhere: data visibility is AI's most overlooked bottleneck. ## [The Most Expensive Question in Data Projects](https://roelwillems.com/the-most-expensive-question-in-data-projects/) _2026-03-30 · Roel Willems · Roel Willems_ Someone asks: 'What data do we already have?' Within minutes, the room is problem-solving. Everyone wants to deliver. So the team works with what's available. And from that moment, the most expensive decision in the project has already been made. ## [Cut Your AI Governance in Half. Then Ask Why.](https://roelwillems.com/cut-your-ai-governance-in-half-then-ask-why/) _2026-03-16 · Roel Willems · Roel Willems_ Most governance frameworks grew by accumulation. The 'cut in half' question forces you to explain why each piece exists. What you'll find is which parts have a clear rationale and which parts exist purely because they seemed responsible at the time. ## [Pirate.io on Google Play (Sponsored)](https://crawlproof.com/a/JAbAcaqAduKI) _2026-03-16 · **Sponsored**_ Open the Pirate.io listing on Google Play to view the app’s details. ## [Agentic Commerce and the Retail Reality Gap](https://roelwillems.com/agentic-commerce-and-the-retail-reality-gap/) _2026-03-09 · Roel Willems · Roel Willems_ We built models to predict grocery baskets. The better they got, the smaller the baskets became. Google, Meta, and now OpenAI have tried to bolt shopping onto their platforms. The disruption never lands. The gap is not compute power. It is a misunderstanding of how people actually shop.