Marketplace · Tuesday, September 8, 2026
Dina Burke, co-founder of the media company Boys Club, created a fake deodorant brand called 'Marwin' to test how generative AI platforms recommend products. Burke found that AI recommendations often align with top-ranked products on platforms like Amazon and that AI can be influenced with minimal effort, such as creating a Q&A section on a website.
“So let's start with the product itself, Marwin, is that right?”
“Yeah, I mean, I think the [inaudible] I think the AI is pretty convincing. It gives very millennial beige vibes. The closer you look at it, though, the more things get kind of funny. Like, I was wondering how many people really want to smell earthy like fog.”
“So since June, I've been running a study I call the AI shelf. And I ask ChatGPT and Claude and Gemini, what to buy across a few different consumer categories. And I do this thousands of times a month and I track what they recommend.”