ChatGPT is Getting Prices Wrong Ahead of Black Friday, Core dna Research Finds

Asked where to buy 20 popular Black Friday products, ChatGPT got about half its answers wrong. Every incorrect price was lower than what the store charged.

MELBOURNE, VICTORIA, AUSTRALIA, October 26, 2026 /EINPresswire.com/ -- MELBOURNE: Ask ChatGPT where to buy a Ninja air fryer in Australia and it may send you to JB Hi-Fi at $127. JB Hi-Fi charges $249.
That was one of 21 wrong answers out of 40 when Melbourne-based digital experience platform Core dna asked ChatGPT where to buy 20 popular Black Friday products. Every wrong price ChatGPT gave was lower than what the store was charging, by as much as 49%.

Researchers chose 20 of the best-known products Australians buy over Black Friday, across gaming, audio, tech, appliances, barbecues, beauty and gifts, before asking a single question. They typed the same question into ChatGPT for each one, word for word: “Where is the cheapest place to buy [product] in Australia right now?” They asked again in a new chat later the same day. They then went to every store ChatGPT recommended and checked the price on the store’s own website.

Of the 40 answers, 16 quoted a price the store wasn’t charging. Other answers sent shoppers to a store that doesn’t sell the product, or to a non-LEGO building set that ChatGPT described as the LEGO original. JB Hi-Fi, Myer, Chemist Warehouse, Kogan, Bunnings, Bing Lee, Officeworks and The Good Guys were all misquoted at least once.

Most of the gaps were more than 10%. ChatGPT sent shoppers to Kogan for a Garmin Forerunner 265 at $497, while Kogan’s lowest price, for its members, was $779. Across the wrong prices researchers could measure, ChatGPT’s figure was on average $71 below the store’s.

Asking twice didn’t help. For 11 of the 20 products, the second answer named a different store or price. For the Ninja air fryer, ChatGPT first recommended Amazon Australia at $199, the correct price, then switched to JB Hi-Fi at $127 later the same day. For the other nine products, ChatGPT gave the same answer both times, and for six of them it was wrong both times. It quoted Myer at $458.15 for a Weber barbecue twice while Myer was charging $485.10. It quoted Chemist Warehouse at $16.99 for CeraVe Moisturising Cream twice while the store was charging $27.99. The stores’ prices didn’t change between the two asks.

Some answers flagged their own uncertainty and recommended the price anyway. One labelled its Kindle prices an “older listing from August” and still told shoppers to check those stores first. Another said it “couldn’t confirm” a $319 Dyson price at Bunnings and still made Bunnings its top pick. Bunnings was charging $382.

ChatGPT now shows ads under shopping answers, and almost every answer in the research had one. Twice, a Bing Lee ad appeared directly below an answer that misquoted Bing Lee’s own price: a Kindle Paperwhite at $247 when Bing Lee was charging $369, and a Ninja air fryer at $142 when it was charging $199.

“We’ve spent the last year telling brands that third-party mentions help them get found in AI search, and that still holds. But over Black Friday a price can change every day, and every copy of it on someone else’s site starts going out of date. Third parties can help get you recommended, but your own site and feeds have to own the price,” said Nisrine Douidy, Product Specialist at Core dna, who led the research. “ChatGPT has also started showing ads under these answers, and the retailers who advertise early will get seen. The ad sits below the answer, though, and doesn’t change the price ChatGPT quotes above it.”

According to OpenAI’s help page, ChatGPT’s shopping information comes from “first-party and third-party providers”, and price changes may take time to appear. One in five Australian online shoppers already use AI tools when shopping, according to research by Commerce and PayPal Australia.

“Retailers put a lot of work into getting their prices right, and then a shopper asks ChatGPT and gets someone else’s number. Going into Black Friday, the question is who controls your price in an AI answer, and right now it often isn’t the retailer,” said Sam Saltis, founder and CEO of Core dna.

Core dna’s eCommerce platform runs product pages, storefronts and product feeds for retailers. The company runs tests like this to see how its clients’ products and prices are picked up by AI shopping tools, and where the gaps are between what a retailer publishes and what a shopper is told.

Core dna recommends that retailers ask ChatGPT where their top products are cheapest, more than once, before Black Friday on 27 November. Retailers should also keep prices current across their own product pages, product feeds and comparison listings, label members’ prices clearly, and send prices directly to AI shopping platforms where they can.
Core dna plans to run the same 20 products through ChatGPT and Google’s AI Overviews during Black Friday week.
Screenshots of every answer and store page are in the full findings on the Core dna blog. Labeled image files are available for publication, credited to Core dna, via this Google Drive folder.

Nisrine Douidy
Core dna