The Vogue Business AI Tracker
The Vogue Business AI Tracker keeps a record of the most important AI developments that will influence our industry and our world, each week. From venture capital investments and startup launches to product drops and regulatory updates, we’ll make sure you never miss a beat when it comes to the AI news that matters.
Mar 17, 2026
The news: Google scraps AI feature that crowdsources medical advice.
Why it matters: Google has removed its “What People Suggest” feature, which aimed to provide medical advice from people around the world living with similar medical conditions. Google told The Guardian it removed this feature in a bid to simplify its search page, but it also comes as AI platforms face growing scrutiny over the risks of misinformation and liability when offering health-related guidance.
The news: Amazon wins court order to block Perplexity’s AI shopping agent.
Why it matters: After filing a lawsuit in November, Amazon has won a court case to temporarily block Perplexity from accessing Amazon’s site with its Comet AI shopping browser. At the time, Amazon alleged that Perplexity took steps to “conceal” its AI agent so that it could scrape Amazon without its approval, posing a security risk to customer data. Amazon previously blocked ChatGPT’s AI shopping agent too.
The news has sparked debate about how far retailers can (or should) restrict AI agents from accessing their platforms. As AI shopping tools increasingly act as intermediaries between consumers and e-commerce platforms, the outcome of cases like this could determine who controls product discovery and the flow of consumer data, and could also pose a potential threat to retailers’ advertising and marketplace revenues.
Mar 10, 2026
The news: OpenAI to roll back its ChatGPT integrated checkout plans.
Why it matters: It marks a U-turn for the chatbot developer, which announced its integrated checkout feature for ChatGPT’s US users back in September, in partnership with Etsy, Shopify and Stripe, so that users can complete purchases via in-chat product listings. Now, OpenAI is scaling back these plans, and focusing instead on checkouts within specific apps that will plug into ChatGPT, The Information first reported. A spokesperson for OpenAI soon confirmed the plans.
OpenAI did not offer further detail on why it is abandoning integrated checkout for now. But a source told The Information that while ChatGPT users were researching products to buy within their chats, they weren’t actually completing purchases there. This may cause AI shopping evangelists — who believe that consumers will soon hand over their credit card details to AI agents to complete purchases on their behalf — to pause for thought. It also has implications for brands, especially those built on Shopify, and the advertisers that were prepping for this shift. Rivals Google and Perplexity also announced plans to introduce integrated checkout features in the last few months; it will be interesting to see how their experiments pan out, especially in regards to uptake.
The news: Meta is reportedly trialing an AI shopping tool.
Why it matters: Meta is joining the chatbot shopping race, as it trials an AI product research feature within its chatbot, available on desktop and web for select users in the US, Bloomberg reported. Much like ChatGPT and Google’s rival features, the tool allows users to discover, compare, and access personalized product recommendations via conversations with the AI, which makes suggestions according to details like the user’s location, per reports.
It comes as CEO Mark Zuckerberg invests millions into his goal to build AI “personal superintelligence”. So far, Meta’s developments in AI have been slightly behind those of its Big Tech rivals, according to critics. Given that Meta owns Instagram and Facebook, the introduction of AI shopping research in the company’s ecosystem could have big implications for brands.
