Anthropic’s AI Debate Exposes Consumer Rights Blind Spot
Q&A with CarEdge CEO Zach Shefska
As AI agents begin to research purchases, compare offers and negotiate on consumers’ behalf, a basic question is coming into focus: Will businesses deal fairly with a buyer who sends software to the negotiating table instead of showing up personally?
The reported debate surrounding Anthropic’s exploration of the legal and ethical boundaries of AI negotiation has largely centered on what an autonomous agent should be permitted to do. Yet consumers face a parallel concern.
For example, a car retailer or dealership may control the prices it discloses, the channels through which it communicates and the conditions attached to an offer. If a business can restrict an independent shopping agent’s access to that information, the consumer may remain at a disadvantage despite having more capable technology.
To examine the practical implications, I connected with Zach Shefska, CEO of CarEdge — an automotive consumer advocacy and technology platform that uses agentic AI-powered tools, pricing intelligence and automated negotiation to help car buyers compare offers, navigate dealership transactions and secure more competitive vehicle pricing. Below are his thoughts about AI representation, differential treatment of shoppers, negotiation ethics and accountability.
1. Should businesses be permitted to refuse negotiations with consumers’ independent AI agents?
Consumers should have the freedom to choose how they shop and who or what represents their interests in a transaction. We’ve accepted this principle in other areas of commerce for decades. People use real estate agents to negotiate home purchases, attorneys to negotiate contracts and financial advisors to help make major financial decisions. AI agents are a technological extension of that same concept. They allow consumers to delegate research, comparison shopping and negotiation to a system that can work on their behalf.
I don’t believe every business should be legally required to negotiate with every AI agent under every circumstance. Businesses have legitimate reasons to verify that an agent is authorized, that its requests are authentic and that the transaction complies with applicable requirements. But there’s an important distinction between reasonable verification and refusing to engage simply because a consumer has become better equipped to negotiate.
In automotive retail, consumers have traditionally faced an information disadvantage. A dealership negotiates vehicle transactions every day. The average consumer purchases a vehicle only occasionally. An independent AI agent can help close that experience gap by gathering written quotes, comparing fees and identifying differences between advertised and actual pricing.
The larger question is whether businesses should be able to preserve an informational advantage by limiting consumers’ access to tools that make comparison shopping more effective. I believe businesses should compete on price, service, product availability and customer experience, rather than on their ability to control how a buyer obtains information.
If a dealership is willing to provide a written price to a human shopper, there should be a compelling operational or security reason for withholding that same information from an authorized agent acting on the shopper’s behalf.
2. Could businesses identify AI-assisted shoppers and offer them different prices, terms, or access?
I believe we’re heading toward a marketplace where AI agents openly identify themselves and businesses actively welcome them. The question will increasingly be whether companies recognize the commercial opportunity of serving customers who prefer to shop through independent AI representatives.
We’re already seeing the foundations of that future. Sierra and Meta recently announced an initiative to develop the Personal Agent Protocol, which would allow businesses to recognize authorized AI agents and interact with them through secure, standardized connections. Walmart is also developing infrastructure that enables approved shopping agents to access its inventory and facilitate purchases. These developments suggest that agent identification could become a normal part of commerce rather than something businesses try to detect or prevent.
We’re already seeing the foundations of that future. Sierra and Meta recently announced an initiative to develop the Personal Agent Protocol, which would allow businesses to recognize authorized AI agents and interact with them through secure, standardized connections. Walmart is also developing infrastructure that enables approved shopping agents to access its inventory and facilitate purchases. To bridge this gap in the automotive sector, CarEdge is actively building Model Context Protocol (MCP) infrastructure for dealerships. Rather than requiring human sales staff to manually process automated inquiries or throw up friction-heavy roadblocks, this backend framework allows personal shopping agents to securely access real-time inventory and pricing data instantly. This makes the entire transaction pipeline faster and more efficient for both sides. These developments suggest that agent identification and standardized machine-to-machine communication will become a normal part of commerce rather than something businesses try to detect or prevent.
For automotive dealerships, I see a compelling economic argument for embracing this transition. An AI buying agent represents a real consumer with purchasing intent. That consumer may have already researched vehicles, established a budget, identified preferred models and authorized the agent to negotiate. Instead of requiring salespeople to spend hours answering preliminary questions, following up with prospects and exchanging multiple rounds of pricing information, dealerships could interact with AI agents that efficiently communicate what their customers want.
That has the potential to lower customer acquisition and sales-processing costs while connecting dealerships with more qualified buyers. A dealership that makes its inventory, pricing and purchase terms accessible to independent agents could attract customers who might otherwise never discover or consider that business.
There’s also a competitive advantage. If one dealership welcomes authorized AI agents and provides accurate, timely quotes while another refuses to engage, the accessible dealership has a better opportunity to win that customer’s business. Over time, consumers may increasingly favor businesses that accommodate their preferred shopping methods.
Of course, dealerships should retain appropriate safeguards. They need to verify that an agent is authorized, protect customer information and establish clear rules around transactions. They should also remain free to negotiate legitimate commercial terms. But recognizing an AI agent shouldn’t automatically mean treating the consumer behind it less favorably.
I think the larger risk for businesses is overlooking how consumer behavior is changing. If people increasingly delegate comparison shopping and negotiations to AI, refusing to participate could mean becoming invisible to a growing segment of potential customers.
The dealerships that embrace agentic commerce could gain two advantages simultaneously: access to more buyers and a lower cost of serving them. That’s a powerful business incentive, and I believe it will ultimately do more to accelerate adoption than regulation alone.
3. Should consumer AI agents prioritize their buyers’ interests, or should technology companies impose limits on how aggressively they negotiate?
An AI agent working for a consumer should absolutely prioritize that consumer’s interests. Otherwise, what is the point of having an independent representative? When someone hires an attorney, real estate agent or professional negotiator, they expect that person to advocate for them within the boundaries of the law. I don’t see why an AI agent should operate under a fundamentally different principle.
There’s a difference between negotiating aggressively and negotiating unethically. An AI agent should be able to request competing offers, challenge unnecessary fees, identify better financing terms and walk away from an unfavorable deal. It shouldn’t fabricate competing bids, misrepresent a buyer’s qualifications, impersonate someone without authorization or make commitments the consumer hasn’t approved.
What concerns me is the possibility that technology companies could impose artificial limits on consumer negotiating agents in the name of fairness while businesses continue using sophisticated pricing systems, customer data and professional sales teams to maximize their own returns.
Fairness cannot mean requiring the consumer’s representative to negotiate less effectively than the business across the table.
At CarEdge, our approach is to use AI to obtain written out-the-door prices, compare competing offers and negotiate on the buyer’s behalf, while leaving the ultimate purchase decision with the consumer. That distinction matters. The technology can handle repetitive negotiations and information gathering without taking away the buyer’s authority to accept or reject a transaction.
I also think aggressive, transparent negotiation can benefit honest dealerships. When consumers can compare real offers efficiently, businesses that provide competitive prices and straightforward terms have a better opportunity to earn their business.
The standard should be truthful representation, consumer authorization and compliance with applicable laws, not an arbitrary restriction on how much money an AI agent is allowed to save its user.
4. Who establishes enforceable rules when businesses refuse to honor AI-negotiated terms or withhold material pricing information?
We need to separate two issues: what existing consumer protection laws already require and what new standards may be necessary as AI agents become more common.
Businesses already have obligations concerning truthful advertising and deceptive pricing. In September 2026, the Federal Trade Commission reiterated that advertised vehicle prices must include dealer-required charges, excluding government-required fees. Those principles apply across advertising channels. The FTC has also pursued enforcement actions involving allegations of undisclosed mandatory charges and misleading vehicle prices.
The fact that a consumer uses AI to obtain or compare pricing information shouldn’t diminish those protections.
At the same time, an AI-generated quote isn’t automatically an enforceable contract. Whether a particular offer is binding depends on its terms, the authority of the person or system making it, applicable law and the circumstances of the transaction. That’s why documentation and clear authorization are so important.
I believe we need practical standards addressing several questions. Was the AI agent authorized to represent the buyer? Did the business provide a complete, itemized quote? Were the vehicle, fees, incentives and financing conditions clearly identified? Was the offer preliminary or formally approved? Can both parties retrieve an accurate record of what was communicated?
Our own pricing experiments illustrate the relevancy. When CarEdge sent AI negotiators to dealerships requesting comparable written offers, more than half of the dealerships contacted refused to provide pricing through email or text. We also found substantial variation in the quotes that were provided, including dealer-controlled price spreads of $9,221 for a Toyota RAV4 Hybrid XSE and $13,871 in out-the-door prices for a Ford F-150 XLT. These were specific experiments, not a statistically representative survey of every dealership, but they demonstrate the challenges consumers can encounter when seeking comparable pricing.
The responsibility should be shared. Regulators should enforce existing consumer protection laws and clarify how they apply to agentic transactions. Businesses should establish reliable processes for verifying authorized representatives and communicating accurate terms. AI developers should preserve records, accurately represent their capabilities and require consumer approval before creating binding commitments.
The objective shouldn’t be to force businesses to accept every negotiated proposal. It should be to ensure that consumers can obtain truthful information, understand when an offer is binding and have meaningful recourse when a business makes misleading representations.
5. Will independent AI agents rebalance commercial power, or will businesses develop new ways to preserve their negotiating advantage?
I believe independent AI agents have the potential to fundamentally change the balance of power between consumers and businesses, but that outcome isn’t guaranteed.
For decades, car buying has been an example of information asymmetry. Dealerships know their inventory, pricing flexibility, financing arrangements and sales objectives. Consumers generally have far less information, and obtaining competing offers can require hours of phone calls, emails and dealership visits.
AI changes the economics of that process. An independent agent can contact multiple businesses, request comparable written prices, examine fees, follow up on discrepancies and negotiate without the same time constraints that limit an individual shopper.
That’s a meaningful shift. The consumer no longer has to rely entirely on the information provided by a single seller or spend days gathering the data necessary to make an informed decision.
But businesses will adapt. Some may invest in their own AI agents, improve pricing transparency and compete more effectively for informed buyers. Others may experiment with limiting automated inquiries, steering consumers into less transparent sales channels or making it more difficult for independent agents to obtain comparable information.
The important question is which behaviors the marketplace rewards.
Our research offers a useful illustration. In CarEdge’s published pricing experiments, 37% of verified quotes included add-on products the buyer hadn’t requested, and documentation fees ranged from zero to $1,094. Those differences become much easier to evaluate when consumers have technology capable of collecting and comparing written offers systematically.
That transparency can benefit dealerships, too. A business offering competitive pricing and a straightforward buying experience should want consumers to recognize those advantages. Independent AI agents can help direct informed shoppers toward businesses that provide reliable information and fair terms.
I don’t believe the future should be defined by consumer AI fighting dealership AI in an endless automated negotiation. The more important opportunity is creating a marketplace where pricing is easier to verify, offers are easier to compare and businesses compete on the actual value they deliver.
Ultimately, the success of agentic commerce shouldn’t be measured by how many negotiations AI can conduct or how sophisticated the technology becomes. It should be measured by whether consumers gain more meaningful choices, better information and greater control over their financial decisions.
AI should make the marketplace more competitive, not simply automate the same information disadvantages that consumers have faced for generations.
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Building on Zach Shefska’s insights above, I see considerable potential for this technology to improve the shopping experience, strengthen consumer confidence and encourage more transparent, competitive business practices. The opportunity extends beyond making transactions faster or easier. It offers a chance to reconsider how consumers access information, evaluate competing offers and exercise greater control over their purchasing decisions.
An independent agent may help you find prices that were previously difficult to compare. But access to more quotes does not guarantee that those quotes are complete, consistent or binding. A consumer still needs to know who authorized an offer, what conditions apply and whether the seller will honor it. The same scrutiny should apply when a company’s own automated system produces a price or promise.
Businesses have legitimate reasons to authenticate agents and protect customer data. Those safeguards should be distinguishable from practices that simply make comparison shopping harder. The test for this emerging market will be practical: Can a buyer using an authorized AI representative obtain the same material information, on understandable terms, as a buyer dealing directly with a salesperson? Until that question has a dependable answer, more automation alone will not resolve the consumer protection problem.
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Entrepreneur Leadership Network member Merilee Kern, MBA, is an internationally regarded communications strategist, brand analyst, author, and media personality. With more than two decades of experience and a client roster that includes Fortune 500 companies and Inc. 5000 businesses, Kern advises CEOs, C-suite executives, business leaders, and both business and personal/executive brands on elevating visibility, refining messaging, curating the desired image and strengthening marketplace authority. Kern is also a prolific media contributor and author, with editorial bylines and expert insights published across more than 450 media outlets, including Forbes, Fast Company, Newsweek, Entrepreneur and Rolling Stone. In television, Kern is the creator, executive producer, and host of multiple shows and appears frequently as a branding, business, lifestyle and consumer trends expert on major network, major market broadcast programs nationwide. Through her multi-channel global platform The Luxe List International News Syndicate, she spotlights industry innovators and executives, standout products and services, and noteworthy destinations and events. Merilee holds an MBA with a marketing specialty and a Bachelor of Science degree from Nova Southeastern University. Connect with her at www.TheLuxeList.com / Instagram www.Instagram.com/MerileeKern / Twitter www.Twitter.com/MerileeKern / Facebook www.Facebook.com/MerileeKernOfficial / LinkedIN www.LinkedIn.com/in/MerileeKern.
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Photo of Zach Shefska Copyright Ilde Cook – More Than Cars
***Some or all of the accommodations(s), experience(s), item(s) and/or service(s) detailed above may have been provided at no cost and/or arranged to accommodate this review, but all opinions expressed are entirely those of Merilee Kern and have not been influenced in any way as per the disclosure policy on our “Legal” page***
