Imagine Every AI Agent on Earth Buying the Same Cheap Paper Towels

C lose your eyes, and imagine a frictionless day.

You wake up to a notification that a grocery-store employee will deliver all of the ingredients for the three recipes you saved last night to your “Weeknight Dinner” folder.

While you brew your coffee, a program browses online retailers to compare toilet-paper prices, and another solicits competitive bids for Sheetrock work you need done in the garage.

During your commute, a bot moves your upcoming dentist appointment to avoid a scheduling conflict.

On your lunch break, you get an alert that computers acting on your behalf noticed some unclaimed funds and class-action payouts in a state database and claimed them.

Also, the machine has negotiated a cheaper internet plan.

By the time you get home, the groceries are on your doorstep, and you’ve gotten back $150.

This is the future that OpenAI, Meta, xAI, Google, and the rest are selling with a spate of always-on AI assistants that work for you.

“Imagine every person on earth with a second mind beyond their own,” Meta’s chief AI officer, Alexandr Wang, wrote of the company’s new AI helper, Muse.

A few weeks after Muse’s launch, OpenAI launched its competing product, Dots, which Sam Altman claimed would let you “get more of your time and attention back.” [ Read: The singularity is not what it seems ] These AI agents promise to bulldoze the inefficiencies of daily life.

Think about all of the opportunities you’re currently leaving on the table: You don’t change cell-service providers for a flash sale because of the paperwork involved.

You haven’t fiddled with your 401(k) investments in years.

You have kids to pick up, a date to dress for, sleep to catch up on.

But your AI agents are different—they’re relentless, tireless, and shameless.