Why shopping agents need memory
Durable, namespaced memory lets an agent carry preferences and constraints between sessions instead of re-interviewing the user.
An index is stateless. A shopper is not. Without memory, every conversation restarts from nothing and the agent asks again about the budget, the brand they refuse and the thing they already bought.
Useful memory is typed. A constraint (“nothing on subscription”) outlives an intent (“looking for a coffee machine this week”), and the two should expire differently.
Recall should be semantic and scoped. The agent should be able to ask what matters for the decision in front of it rather than replaying a full history into context — that is cheaper, and it is also what makes the recommendation explainable.
Keep reading
What is commerce intelligence?
Commerce intelligence is the layer above price monitoring: an index of what exists, who sells it, at what, and what that means.
Why percentile beats percent-off
A percentile against a product's own history is a defensible measure of discount depth; percent-off a reference price is not.
Product matching and why it fails quietly
How cross-seller product matching works, the three ways it fails, and why published match confidence matters.
GTIN, UPC, EAN and ASIN
How product identifiers relate, why check digits matter, and what to do when there is no identifier at all.
Data provenance in commerce data
Why every price should carry its origin and a confidence weight, and what goes wrong when it does not.