a16z Podcast The Death of Search: How Shopping Will Work In The Age of AI
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Sep 17, 2025 
In this discussion, Alex Rampell, a General Partner at a16z with a background in e-commerce, and Justine Moore, a Partner focused on AI and consumer markets, dive into the transformative role of AI agents in online shopping. They explore how consumer behaviors are shifting, the challenges of trust in product reviews, and the implications for traditional marketing models. They also discuss dynamic pricing, the role of video reviews, and the exciting future of specialized shopping agents that could reshape commerce as we know it.
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Web Quality Is Broken
- The open web is full of SEO-optimized low-quality content that undermines trust.
- AI agents can redirect discovery and begin transaction flows away from traditional search engines.
TrialPay And Affiliate Tracking
- Alex described building TrialPay and how affiliate tracking relied on cookies and pixels.
- He used this history to question affiliate marketing's future in AI-driven commerce.
Behavior Signals Predict Agent Automation
- Observed user behaviors like price-watching (camelcamelcamel) predict agent automation opportunities.
- If agents can act on monitored signals, consumers will automate purchases they already intend to make.