Joe McKendrick, a Forbes senior contributor, wrote that AI agents do not shop like people. When the model has no extra sources, it leans hard on one product. Give it more moving parts and the pick jumps.
“Two users issuing the same request, or the same user on a different day or a different model, may receive different products without any visible explanation.”
— Joe McKendrick, Forbes, 31 August 2026
That sentence is the hole a small business feels when ChatGPT names a competitor they have never heard of. The agent did not verify anyone. It completed a pattern from thin context.
What a public file can do
It cannot make the agent loyal. McKendrick is clear that model and path change the outcome. What the file can do is stop the first error: naming the wrong legal company, the wrong city, or a dead phone.
Put the name, the site you own, and the city in one place a crawler can fetch. Then go fight reviews and feeds separately. Do not buy a story that a seal will make every agent pick you tomorrow.
What this desk will not claim
We will not turn McKendrick’s piece into a shopping-agent product. The Agentic Marketplace on this site is a later direction, not a store you can enter. Gold is $297 a year for the company file after the website is proved. That is the live offer.