eBay's OpenAI Operator Agent Collaboration - AI Innovation Or Hype?
eBay is leveraging OpenAI's AI new agent Operator offering to act as a virtual assistant capable of autonomously performing tasks across the internet, including online shopping, and directs users to eBay for unique inventory finds - but is it really an innovative tech breakthrough or just more AI hype?
Chief AI Officer Nitzan Mekel-Bobrov, Ph.D. posted about the collaboration on LinkedIn and in a company blog.
At eBay, we’re leveraging the latest advances in AI to redefine the future of ecommerce for enthusiasts. The evolution from LLMs to agentic systems is happening faster than most of us would have predicted just a year ago, and we believe agent-based interactions will play a major role in the future of ecommerce over the next few years and of the digital economy as a whole.
Today’s announcement of eBay’s collaboration with OpenAI marks an important step in our AI strategy. As one of the first companies collaborating with OpenAI on their research preview of AI agent, Operator, we are taking a step forward in shaping the future of agentic ecommerce in a way that benefits and protects our customers.
Our collaboration with OpenAI will introduce a new paradigm of discovery and shopping online. Operator acts as a virtual assistant, autonomously performing tasks across the internet, including online shopping, and directs users to eBay for unique inventory finds.
We anticipate that through this collaboration, we will expand the reach of our sellers, giving more buyers exposure to eBay’s unique inventory.
This is just the beginning. As we continue to evolve our internal AI agent capabilities, and deepen our strategic partnerships, we’re learning how these technologies can best empower buyers to discover more of the things they love and enable sellers to grow their businesses successfully.
As we continue to advance our AI strategy, stay tuned for more updates as we continue to lead the way in reinventing the future of ecommerce.
While the announcement is short on details about how exactly Operator will be used by eBay specifically, OpenAI gives a more general overview of the functionality it provides:
Today we’re releasing Operator, an agent that can go to the web to perform tasks for you. Using its own browser, it can look at a webpage and interact with it by typing, clicking, and scrolling.
It is currently a research preview, meaning it has limitations and will evolve based on user feedback. Operator is one of our first agents, which are AIs capable of doing work for you independently—you give it a task and it will execute it.
Operator can be asked to handle a wide variety of repetitive browser tasks such as filling out forms, ordering groceries, and even creating memes. The ability to use the same interfaces and tools that humans interact with on a daily basis broadens the utility of AI, helping people save time on everyday tasks while opening up new engagement opportunities for businesses.
Interestingly, OpenAI makes it sound much less like a "special" collaboration than Mekel-Bobrov - in fact they also list Etsy, StubHub, DoorDash, Instacart, OpenTable, Priceline, Thumbtack, Uber, Target and more amongst the companies that were included in this initial research preview.
But such over-ambitious hype about eBay's AI initiatives is nothing new - it's par for the course with most of the initiatives which have been launched under Mekel-Bobrov's leadership and continues a long tradition of unfilled AI promises at eBay.
For example, when eBay first released AI generated description capability in both the app and desktop experiences, the feature was almost immediately removed due to bugs which, in eBay's own words "created a broken user experience" and then reintroduced months later.
Liz Morton
Similarly, when eBay's AI background enhancement tool was introduced, sellers reported the experience was buggy and laggy, not to mention it caused a technical glitch which turned images into white shapes on black backgrounds.
Liz Morton
Magical AI listing promises have also been watered down, instead of the "just take a picture and let AI do the rest" single listing experience sellers were promised over a year ago, eBay has released a bulk AI listing tool that still has a lot of limitations.
Liz Morton
eBay has also been leveraging AI and image recognition technology for "search visually similar" features but results can vary widely and in many cases are reported to be wildly inaccurate - or they are launched prematurely and then quietly disappear, like the recent "press, hold, discover" functionality in the eBay app.
AI tools like Shop The Look, eBay Explore, and eBay.AI search results have also struggled to provide useful, relevant experiences for buyers.
Liz Morton
Recenting testing of AI generated FAQs in search results is an interesting concept, but the placement is sure to be controversial as it pushes some items further down the results page, potentially impacting impressions and views - which may be way it appears eBay quickly abandoned this test.
Liz Morton
Mekel-Bobrov said in October 2023 that he believe AI will bring a paradigm shift that will "completely transform ecommerce" in the next 3-5 years - but yet under his leadership eBay's own AI efforts have been hit or miss and most of the actual innovation is being outsourced through non-exclusive "collaborations" that are also available to be used by competitors.
In early 2019, then eBay CEO Devin Wenig was very publicly called out by activist investor Elliott Management for ongoing technical failures and management misexecution in a letter to the Board of Directors calling for substantial changes at the company (emphasis mine).
Today eBay suffers from an inefficient organizational structure, wasteful spend and a misallocation of resources. By increasing operational efficiency, eBay can free up capital to invest in capability- and revenue-enhancing activities.
...As an online marketplace that provides a critical forum for millions of buyers and sellers, the efficient and effective functioning of the platform is paramount. Unfortunately,eBay has been plagued by technical problems and operational challenges for years...
...Fast forward to recent years and the platform still faces issues. In 2018, eBay sellers complained about countless technical issues including incorrect billing, lost photos, warped titles and many others. On this month’s end of year podcast, eBay senior management apologized to sellers and admitted, “This is a 2018 that we don’t want to repeat on a number of levels. And the technology issues that we have had with the platform is top of the list.”
We agree: The consistent reliability of the platform is central to eBay’s success, and management must do all that it takes to achieve it.
While innovative endeavors in new pursuits like machine learning and augmented reality are promising future technologies,eBay’s publicly touted initiatives in these areas will add little value if the core platform continues to have critical functionality failures.
While Elliott has since divested its eBay shares, it's surprising just how much of the 2019 letter still rings true.
The site is still plagued by ongoing, near daily business impacting technical issues and operational challenges and current management is clearly not doing all that it takes to achieve consistent reliability of the platform.
Liz Morton
Just like machine learning and AR before, AI may be a promising future technology, but it will add little value if the core infrastructure continues to falter.
Will AI really "completely transform ecommerce" as Mekel-Bobrov predicts?
Maybe - but if so, it will be due to contributions from OpenAI and other big dogs in the field, not eBay's perpetually underwhelming and disappointing unfulfilled tech-led reimagination promises.
