The Federal Trade Commission is investigating how major companies use artificial intelligence and personal data to determine consumer prices and worker compensation, examining practices across airlines, retail, ride-hailing and delivery services.
Delta, United, JetBlue, Lyft, Uber, DoorDash, Instacart, Target and Walmart are among the businesses named in the inquiry. The agency is seeking information about how companies use consumer data when deciding what customers pay for products and services. The investigation also encompasses the use of these technologies to determine compensation for workers.
The FTC says companies that do not supply the requested information could be required to answer questions in federal court. The information-gathering process does not, by itself, establish that any of the named businesses has violated the law. Details about the specific data used by each company, or the pricing and compensation systems under examination, were not provided in the available account.
At the center of the inquiry is personalized pricing: the possibility that a business adjusts an offer using information about an individual customer. That differs from a price change driven solely by broader market conditions, such as limited inventory or a surge in demand. Prices can fluctuate without being personalized, so a changing fare or delivery charge alone does not demonstrate that a company has used a customer's personal information.
AI can make it easier to identify patterns across large datasets and use those patterns to generate predictions. In a pricing context, such systems could help estimate how likely someone is to purchase an item at a particular price. Whether and how the companies in this investigation use those capabilities remains a question for the inquiry, rather than an established finding.
The prospect of prices being influenced by online behavior has raised concerns among consumers. News 12 interviewed traveler Jasmine Edwards, who questioned whether repeatedly searching for a flight could lead to being offered different prices. Her concern illustrates the uncertainty customers can face when they cannot see which factors determine an offer; it does not establish that an airline changed a fare because of her searches.
The worker-compensation component raises a separate set of questions about automated decision-making. Systems that determine customer charges and systems that calculate worker pay serve different purposes, even when they operate within the same platform. Establishing what data feeds into each process is necessary to understand how the resulting amounts are set.
The companies named span businesses with substantially different pricing structures, from airline tickets and store purchases to rides and deliveries. The FTC's information requests seek to clarify how personal data is used within those decisions. The available account does not specify a deadline for responses or a timetable for the agency's findings.
Sources: News12 | New Jersey