Welcome to the forefront of conversational AI as we explore the fascinating world of AI chatbots in our dedicated blog series. Discover the latest advancements, applications, and strategies that propel the evolution of chatbot technology. From enhancing customer interactions to streamlining business processes, these articles delve into the innovative ways artificial intelligence is shaping the landscape of automated conversational agents. Whether you’re a business owner, developer, or simply intrigued by the future of interactive technology, join us on this journey to unravel the transformative power and endless possibilities of AI chatbots.
Come Monday morning and a couple of news stories stared us in the first. The first involved Google announcing a new open protocol for AI agent-based shopping. The other related to OpenAI reportedly asking contractors to provide detailed descriptions of their work to train their models for automating white-collar jobs.
Wow! This is all we need to blow away the Blues on a bleak Monday morning. Let’s first look at what OpenAI is up to? A report in Wired says OpenAI has asked third-party contractors to upload real assignments and tasks from their current and previous workplaces to ascertain the performance of its AI models.
Did OpenAI ask workers to share past data from employers?
The report quotes records from OpenAI and training data provider Handshake AI suggest that contractors need to upload real examples of their work. It should be a complete output, not a summary and include word documents, PDFs, PPTs, MS Excel files, images etc, says a presentation by OpenAI that Wired got access to.
The idea behind uploading actual files, according to OpenAI, is that people share fabricated work examples. It says real-world tasks have a task request and a task deliverable. Examples that contractors share must reflect “real, on-the-job work” that the person has “actually done”, the company presentation says.
The question now is if the approach has legal ramifications. The report quotes IP lawyer Evan Brown to suggest that any AI lab taking this approach is “putting itself at great risk” with an approach that requires “a lot of trust in its contractors to decide what is and isn’t confidential.” In short, this could be another form of data theft!
Meanwhile, Google is gung-ho over digital shopping
Shifting over to Google’s announcement at the National Retail Federation conference, the new universal commerce protocol allows agents to work across the entire customer buying process, starting from discovery to post-purchase support. It could potentially facilitate these processes without requiring actual connections.
The UCP has been created though collaborative efforts with the likes of Shopify, Wayfair, Walmart, Target and such other companies and Google has ensured that it works with other agentic protocols such as AP2 that it announced in 2025, the Agent2Agent and the Model Context Protocols. Businesses can choose specific extensions.
Soon, Google plans to use UCP on Google product listings in AI search mode and Gemini Apps to allow shoppers in the US to do in-app purchases and follow-up processes. So, users can pay via Google Pay and share shipping data via Google Wallet. Digital retailers say this could be a game changer as products may now find the user, not vice-versa.
That’s not all. Google also announced that it would allow brands to offer discounts to users during AI mode search and discovery. The queries can be hyper-specific and written in natural language, not the old search query prompts. In response brands can set up their campaigns to offer immediate discounts on the AI response section.
Looks like AI giants are suddenly seeing revenue options from retail. Even PayPal and OpenAI are working on making sellers more discoverable in AI chatbots. Which is what makes Google’s recent forays interesting. The company allows merchants to integrate branded AI-led Business Agents within Google Search to respond to customer queries.
The AI battle is getting bigger early in 2026. With it, the question of ethical and legal use of our data also becomes that much more crucial.
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