And for the rest of us, there\u2019s Pine, the AI agent that just saved me a thousand bucks.<\/p>\n
Created for time-crunched consumers, Singapore-based Pine uses agents to negotiate money-saving deals with banks, insurance companies, cell phone companies, hotels and even hospitals. According to its website Pine can get you a restaurant reservation, appeal a parking ticket, check up on your lost luggage, or phone you every morning and tell you the latest news.<\/p>\n
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Last week I asked Pine to find me a cheaper home insurance policy, and it did. I\u2019ll now be paying about $1,000 less per year. <\/p>\n
I could have done the same on my own, after several hours of comparison shopping. Instead, Pine ran the web searches and placed the phone calls, while I handled other business. <\/p>\n
The process wasn\u2019t exactly seamless, but it worked out pretty well. Despite my bone-deep suspicions about AI agents, Pine has shown me how valuable they can be, as long as they\u2019re kept on a tight leash.<\/p>\n
Pine founder Stanley Wei, who splits his time between Singapore and the US, got sick of staying up until 3 AM to talk to the customer service operator at a US bank or credit card company, only to be put on hold.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s super difficult to reach out to a real person,\u201d We said, \u201cand you have to reach a real person to get something done.\u201d<\/p>\n
So he and his team created Pine to crawl through the customer service labyrinth with infinite patience. <\/p>\n
Pine\u2019s AI is powered by two of the industry\u2019s titans, OpenAI and Anthropic<\/a>. But the company\u2019s secret sauce is its proprietary text- and voice-generation software that interacts with users and businesses.<\/p>\n For instance, I typed in my home insurance query at the Pine website. The service instantly fired off queries to a number of companies. And when it found a promising candidate, it asked for my permission to phone the company\u2019s customer service line for more details. <\/p>\n Yes, Pine literally speaks for you. At signup you can choose from a library of male and female voices. Pine uses your chosen voice to speak with someone in the company call center and try to negotiate a low price. <\/p>\n The company\u2019s negotiator might not be human either. Many companies now use their own AI agents to field customer service calls, whether from humans or machines. These companies often reveal they\u2019re using AI at the start of the call; Pine always does. <\/p>\n Wei said that Pine can generally out-negotiate the companies it deals with, whether the company is being represented by a human or an AI. A typical bank or insurance company is usually willing to compromise on price, for fear of losing the customer altogether. Meanwhile, the Pine AI is programmed to be calm, polite and relentless, always pushing for a better deal, and often succeeding.<\/p>\n Pine has its limits, some of these welcome. For instance, when it found a possible bargain on homeowner\u2019s insurance, it first hooked me up with someone at the company\u2019s customer service department who double-checked my name and address and confirmed that I wanted to make a deal. Then I hung up and let Pine do the rest.<\/p>\n Minutes later, up popped a cheerful announcement that Pine had indeed found a cheaper policy, and that it would be even cheaper when bundled with my auto insurance. Since I pay my homeowners policy through my mortgage lender, Pine needed the name of the bank and my mortgage number to set up the policy switch. I handed over the data, and Pine made the switch. Beginning in June, I\u2019ll be about $100 richer each month.<\/p>\n But like other AIs, Pine can get things spectacularly wrong. When I went looking for cheaper car insurance, it claimed to have found about $2,500 in savings \u2014 much too good to be true. It turned out that Pine\u2019s query didn\u2019t mention that my existing policy covers my 20-year-old daughter. I\u2019d provided this data, but Pine had failed to include it in the search. When I pointed this out, Pine offered a groveling apology, and a new price that\u2019s as high as ever. <\/p>\n I\u2019d paid for Pine\u2019s mistakes The company charges $20 for 4,000 \u201ccredits\u201d to cover its costs, and I blew at least that much money chasing down that illusory insurance discount. Though Wei graciously gave me a partial refund, it\u2019s clear that Pine\u2019s pricing strategy is a major blind spot.<\/p>\n Pine\u2019s credits are linked to \u201ctokens,\u201d the currency of the AI services that Pine relies upon. Each Pine query sent to OpenAI or Anthropic burns through a certain number of AI tokens, but it\u2019s impossible to know in advance how many tokens a given question will cost. So you can\u2019t know how many tokens it takes to find a cheaper hotel room \u2014 it might depend on how many hotels Pine checks out.<\/p>\n A Pine user can easily rip through a whole lot of credits if he\u2019s not careful. Corporate giants are learning the same lesson. Uber recently revealed that its workers burned through the company\u2019s entire annual AI budget in just four months. Throughout the US, corporations are telling workers to dial back on the AI.<\/p>\n If you\u2019re sensitive about privacy, any AI service should make you nervous. That goes double for Pine, which expects you to upload all manner of sensitive data. But the company says it only keeps stuff long enough to perform its assigned tasks, and deletes it immediately after. It permanently stores only basic name and address data, but not the really hazardous stuff like bank account information. <\/p>\n AI agents capable of making their own mistakes still make me nervous, especially the ones toiling away on Wall Street<\/a> or even at, God forbid, the Pentagon<\/a>, where they\u2019re already being used to help decide who gets blown up next. But Pine \u2014powerful enough to be useful, but cautious enough to be safe \u2014 hits the sweet spot.<\/p>\n Hiawatha Bray can be reached at hiawatha.bray@globe.com<\/a>. Follow him @GlobeTechLab<\/a>.<\/p>\n