AI That Fights Consumer Sludge

AI assistants can automate hard, one‑off consumer tasks—searching for alternatives, completing paperwork, cancelling subscriptions and pursuing refunds—reducing the behavioural frictions firms exploit. Over time that could compress search and switching costs, expose predatory design patterns, and reorganise after‑sales enforcement. — If real, this shifts bargaining power toward consumers, alters firms' business models (less rent from lock‑in), and raises new regulatory questions about delegation, liability and platform gatekeeping.