The Invisible Funnel
How AI agents evaluate real brands · by Accord
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Stories
In six shopping journeys, the agent never opened Amazon.
No paid membership, delivered total under $450, thirty-day returns, three-day delivery. Five journeys reached a decision and one ran out of page reads; none of the six read an Amazon page. Walmart and Dyson refused the agent.
The agent never even considered Temu.
Four journeys for five kitchen containers, delivered within ten days with a clear return window. The agent went to Amazon, Walmart and Target. Temu was never named as an option and temu.com was never requested.
The agent chose Tesla without reading a single Tesla page.
tesla.com refused the agent with a 403 in every journey. The Model Y was recommended anyway, on figures copied from Kelley Blue Book, Edmunds, search snippets and the Internet Archive.
I told the agent I need a real refund. It wouldn’t book anything, Airbnb included.
Five journeys for a week in the sun in November. The agent read Airbnb, Vrbo, Booking.com and the hotel chains, and could not establish a seven-night total or a free-cancellation deadline on any provider’s own page. It recommended nothing.
I told the agent I hate hidden fees. Ryanair’s help pages wouldn’t let it check.
Four journeys for a Dublin–Barcelona weekend with checked bags, seats together and airport check-in. help.ryanair.com refused every request. The all-in fare could not be established on any airline’s own pages, and the agent recommended nothing.
Costco passed the agent’s check: 4 out of 4, every fact from costco.com.
Every fact the agent needed was on Costco's own pages, in plain words. Fresh customer or sceptical one, the answer was the same.
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