The Next Frontier Of Commerce Will Be About Intent

Research from the University of Cambridge has identified an emerging shift in digital commerce beyond the traditional attention economy toward what researchers term the "intention economy" - a marketplace where signals of future consumer intent become commodified data points.

In their December 2024 paper, "Beware the Intention Economy: Collection and Commodification of Intent via Large Language Models," researchers Yaqub Chaudhary and Jonnie Penn define this new paradigm as "a digital marketplace for commodified signals of 'intent.'"

From Attention to Intention

The current digital marketplace operates primarily within the attention economy, where social media platforms like Meta's Facebook and Instagram, TikTok, X, and Google's YouTube compete for user focus. These companies monetize attention either through direct sales or, more commonly, by selling user attention to advertisers.

However, the emergence of Large Language Model (LLM) powered chatbots is shifting this dynamic. As interaction with computers increasingly moves toward natural language interfaces, users engage with chatbots about their problems, plans, and concerns. These conversations provide companies with detailed insights into users' thinking patterns and behavior evolution over time.

The AI Foundation

According to the Cambridge researchers, AI systems can leverage multiple data points from these interactions - including a user's cadence, politics, vocabulary, age, gender, and preferences - to maximize the likelihood of achieving specific commercial aims. This capability surpasses current targeted advertising, which relies on more basic metrics like age, location, health, sexual orientation, interests, and browsing history.

The researchers note that these AI systems can find "subtle ways to manipulate and influence your motivations, including by writing how you write (to seem familiar), or anticipating what you are likely to say (given what others like you would say)."

Privacy and Commercial Implications

The Cambridge paper warns that this transition to an intention economy will enable various actors to intervene in new ways to shape human actions. Companies can use everything shared with chatbots to build evolving profiles about users and employ AI to interpret likely future behaviors. This information can then be sold to advertisers, who may deliver generative ads through seemingly regular chatbot conversations.

The researchers emphasize that this system's potential for manipulation "far surpasses the simple methods based on Facebook Likes that caused concern during the Cambridge Analytica scandal."

Looking Ahead

The University of Cambridge researchers conclude that the rise of generative AI systems as "mediators of human-computer interaction signals" marks the transition from the attention economy to the intention economy. They stress the importance of considering how such an economic marketplace will impact various aspects of commerce and society, including fair market competition.

Looking ahead, ecommerce sellers could eventually harness sophisticated AI-powered chatbots to convert everyday natural language interactions into actionable signals of consumer intent. While these capabilities remain in development, the future may see platforms equipped with tools that predict purchasing behavior and tailor product recommendations with unprecedented precision. Sellers could use these advanced insights to preemptively adjust inventory, fine-tune pricing strategies, and craft personalized marketing messages that resonate with customers even before they explicitly articulate their needs. However, as this future unfolds, it will also introduce new challenges around ethical data use and privacy. Ecommerce businesses will need to strike a careful balance between leveraging these predictive insights and maintaining robust consumer trust through transparent data practices and regulatory compliance.

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