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3 ways Google's AI Mode is going to change how you shop online

ZDNet

Online shopping has never been perfect. If I'm online scouting for a good deal on a pair of shoes, I have to sort through several options, sizes, colors, and price points to find what I want. And if I want to buy the shoes at a discount, I have to wait several weeks or months and come back when the price drops. At Google's annual developer event, Google IO, the tech giant is debuting an AI-powered solution to online shoppers' problems in the form of AI Mode. AI Mode offers online shoppers several options for finding exactly what they want, virtually trying on the clothing before they buy, and tracking prices to buy when a product is at its lowest.


The 21 Best Early Amazon Pet Day Deals (2025)

WIRED

Why not spoil your furry friend--and save some bones while you're at it too--with some of our favorite Amazon Pet Day deals. In the great tradition of Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and Amazon Prime Day, Amazon has expanded these savings extravaganzas to the pet tech sphere. As the pet tech writer here at WIRED, I have strong opinions about which (often pricey) pet gear is worth your hard-earned dough. I've rounded up some of the best deals I've seen so far on some of my favorite pet-related items I've tested. From automatic litter boxes to toys, feeders to fountains, and even DNA testing kits and pet cameras, I've put the best pet-related deals on WIRED-tested gear that I've seen so far below.


Amazon Spring Sale tech deals: The best sales from Apple, Bose, iRobot, Dyson and others

Engadget

This year's Amazon Spring Sale is nearly over, but there's still time to grab a bunch of household, fashion and outdoor gear for record-low prices. Tech isn't a huge focus for this sale, but there are a decent number of devices on sale right now for some of the best prices we've seen all year. The selection may not be as good as that of Amazon Prime Day in July, but it still provides a good opportunity to save on things like headphones, robot vacuums, air purifiers and more. We've collected the best Amazon Spring Sale deals on tech gear here so you don't have to go searching for them. Our top pick for the best budget streaming device can play content at 1080p/60fps and now its remote can also control your TV's power and volume.


Amazon Spring Sale tech deals: The best discounts from Apple, Bose, iRobot, Dyson and others

Engadget

This year's Amazon Spring Sale is in full swing, and as promised, a ton of household, fashion and outdoor gear has dropped to record-low prices. Tech isn't a huge focus for this sale, but there are a decent number of devices on sale right now for some of the best prices we've seen all year. The selection may not be as good as that of Amazon Prime Day in July, but it still provides a good opportunity to save on things like headphones, robot vacuums, air purifiers and more. We've collected the best Amazon Spring Sale deals on tech gear here so you don't have to go searching for them. The Spring Sale runs through March 31, so check back here for all of the latest deals as they drop.


Amazon Spring Sale tech deals: The best discounts from Apple, Bose, Sonos, Beats, Anker and others

Engadget

The Amazon Spring Sale is here, bringing a slew of discounts on household essentials, fashion, outdoor gear and even furniture. We at Engadget are focused on tech, and while the selection this time around isn't quite as good as that of Amazon Prime Day in July, there are some decent discounts to be had. Some of our favorite robot vacuums, air purifiers, headphones and storage gear are on sale right now for some of the best prices we've seen this year so far. Below, you'll find all of the best tech deals we could find in the Amazon Spring Sale. The shopping event runs through March 31, so be sure to check back for the latest deals as they become available.


Demand Estimation with Text and Image Data

arXiv.org Artificial Intelligence

We propose a demand estimation method that leverages unstructured text and image data to infer substitution patterns. Using pre-trained deep learning models, we extract embeddings from product images and textual descriptions and incorporate them into a random coefficients logit model. This approach enables researchers to estimate demand even when they lack data on product attributes or when consumers value hard-to-quantify attributes, such as visual design or functional benefits. Using data from a choice experiment, we show that our approach outperforms standard attribute-based models in counterfactual predictions of consumers' second choices. We also apply it across 40 product categories on Amazon and consistently find that text and image data help identify close substitutes within each category.


Synatra: Turning Indirect Knowledge into Direct Demonstrations for Digital Agents at Scale

Neural Information Processing Systems

LLMs can now act as autonomous agents that interact with digital environments and complete specific objectives (e.g., arranging an online meeting). However, accuracy is still far from satisfactory, partly due to a lack of large-scale, direct demonstrations for digital tasks. Obtaining supervised data from humans is costly, and automatic data collection through exploration or reinforcement learning relies on complex environmental and content setup, resulting in datasets that lack comprehensive coverage of various scenarios. On the other hand, there is abundant knowledge that may indirectly assist task completion, such as online tutorials that were created for human consumption. In this work, we present Synatra, an approach that effectively transforms this indirect knowledge into direct supervision at scale. We define different types of indirect knowledge, and carefully study the available sources to obtain it, methods to encode the structure of direct demonstrations, and finally methods to transform indirect knowledge into direct demonstrations. We use 100k such synthetically-created demonstrations to finetune a 7B CodeLlama, and demonstrate that the resulting agent surpasses all comparably sized models on three web-based task benchmarks Mind2Web, MiniWoB++ and WebArena, as well as surpassing GPT-3.5 on WebArena and Mind2Web. In addition, while synthetic demonstrations prove to be only 3% the cost of human demonstrations (at $0.031 each), we show that the synthetic demonstrations can be more effective than an identical number of human demonstrations collected from limited domains.


Amazon Spring Sale 2025: The best tech deals from Apple, Bose, Sonos, Beats, Anker and others

Engadget

This year's Amazon Spring Sale is in full swing, and as promised, a ton of household, fashion and outdoor gear has dropped to record-low prices. Tech isn't a huge focus for this sale, but there are a decent number of devices on sale right now for some of the best prices we've seen all year. The selection may not be as good as that of Amazon Prime Day in July, but it still provides a good opportunity to save on things like headphones, robot vacuums, air purifiers and more. We've collected the best Amazon Spring Sale deals on tech gear here so you don't have to go searching for them. The Spring Sale runs through March 31, so check back here for all of the latest deals as they drop.


The Amazon Spring Sale 2025 is live: The best tech deals from Apple, Bose, Sonos, Anker and others

Engadget

The Amazon Spring Sale has arrived, bringing a slew of discounts on household essentials, fashion, outdoor gear and even furniture. We at Engadget are focused on tech, and while the selection this time around isn't quite as good as that of Amazon Prime Day in July, there are some decent discounts to be had. Some of our favorite robot vacuums, air purifiers, headphones and storage gear are on sale right now for some of the best prices we've seen this year so far. Below, you'll find all of the best tech deals we could find in the Amazon Spring Sale. The shopping event runs through March 31, so be sure to check back for the latest deals as they become available.


As a pro robot vacuum reviewer, this is easily my favorite deal from Amazons spring sale

Mashable

SAVE 800: As of March 25, the Roborock Qrevo Master robot vacuum is on sale for 799.99 at Amazon's Big Spring Sale. Amazon never disappoints with robot vacuum deals at its big sales, and the Big Spring Sale is timed perfectly between the Black Friday and Prime Day seasons. A ton of options hit 30% off or more, but as someone who tests robot vacuums for a living, narrowing down my top one or two recommendations for someone is easy. I simply scan the list for my ultimate favorite robot vacuums that I've tested at home. Lo and behold, the Roborock Qrevo Master (my favorite from all of 2024) is 50% off for the spring sale.