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Mia Sato

Things Mia Says on Podcasts

Reporter at The Verge who covers tech platforms and the creator economy, including the clip economy, social video and the market for knockoff products. Appears on The Vergecast to discuss her reporting and has interviewed guests such as Tim Heidecker on the show. Also a guest on What Next: TBD, Better Offline, Galaxy Brain, Marketplace, Decoder with Nilay Patel and Version History.

Where to Find Them

Mia Sato writes The Verge and hosts The Vergecast . They have also been a guest on What Next: TBD | Tech, power, and the future (5 times) , Marketplace (APM) (2 times) , Marketplace (2 times) , Marketplace All-in-One (2 times) , Better Offline , Galaxy Brain , Decoder with Nilay Patel and Version History .

Recently: “Inflation just won't quit” on Marketplace (November 2026); “Inflation just won't quit” on Marketplace (APM) (November 2026); “Inflation just won't quit” on Marketplace All-in-One (November 2026); “There’s no slowing down media’s pivot-to-video 2.0” on The Verge (November 2026); “We’re All Being Recorded. What Do We Do About It?” on Galaxy Brain (September 2026); “Can Reddit fend off a new wave of AI SEO spam?” on The Verge (August 2026).

What They Said

“I realized I could have Meta's Muse agent add 10 or 20 items to my cart all at once. And then I told Muse, when the 20 minutes expires, go do that whole thing again. Just re-add it to my cart. Effectively, what happened was nobody else was able to buy those 20 items for like hours and hours while I did this.” — Mia Sato, Marketplace

Sato describes an experiment on a secondhand luxury site that holds items in a cart for 20 minutes. She says the retailer closed the loophole a few days after her story ran, and uses it to show what could happen when many AI agents swarm shopping sites.

Marketplace · 2026-11-10 Permalink → Listen →
Marketplace Around 14:04 into the episode
Speaker 1

…don't like these options. Can you look for something more like this? And some of the agents do kind of learn your preferences. You can tell them, you know, save this information for later. But as humans, we change our minds all the time. So I found that it is. It can be quite tedious, actually. You

Speaker 3

know, on the other hand, you ran an experiment where AI maybe performed too well. Tell me about your experiment with the site, The Real Real.

Speaker 1

Yeah, so The Real Real is a secondhand luxury fashion site. And when you put something in your cart, the Real Real puts it on hold for you for 20 minutes and it makes it so nobody else can buy the product. Andrew Davis few weeks ago, I realized I could have Meta's Muse agent add 10 or 20 items to my cart all at once. And then I told Muse, when the 20 minutes expires, go do that whole thing again. Just re-add it to my cart. Effectively, what happened was nobody else was able to buy those 20 items for like hours and hours while I did this. I asked The Real Real for comment, and a few days after my story published, they actually changed that and closed that loophole. But it kind of, you know, shows the future for humans shopping online when all these AI agents are swarming our favorite websites.

Speaker 3

It's a lot of power to give a person an AI agent. Yes. Yes. Well, I want to also look at this from the retailer's perspective because I mean, even your experience with The Real Real, there is a question here about quality of customer experience when you let an agent in. How do retailers and brands…

Speaker 1

I think they're kind of probably of two minds. On one hand, every company that we order from online is adding their own AI features. On the other hand, there is a risk for retailers and brands to let agents browse their site and buy things on the person's behalf. A huge part of Amazon's bottom line…

Speaker 3

Do you use AI to shop? And how, what are sort of your best tips and tricks for where it actually helps?

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.
“The way I described it was shopping with an agent feels like looking through a pinhole. You give it instructions and it only looks for that. It can sometimes look wider, but you really need to give it feedback. … As humans, we change our minds all the time. So I found that it can be quite tedious, actually.” — Mia Sato, Marketplace

The host asked how much hand-holding AI shopping agents need. Sato, a Verge writer who tested the new agentic shoppers from Meta, Google, OpenAI and others, describes the experience as less effortless than the companies claim.

Marketplace · 2026-11-10 Permalink → Listen →
Marketplace Around 13:22 into the episode
Speaker 1

…many transactions are actually happening through AI agents. Some companies who have come out and said, like, we are not really processing that many agentic transactions at all. We're talking like some companies have said a few hundred. Some have said like in the single digits. So it's happening,

Speaker 3

…all signals point to the scale being still pretty small. Gotcha. So we're mostly talking about searching, winnowing down ideas. How much hand holding does that take? Because like in my experience, I think sometimes your results are only as good as whatever you tell the AI agent in the first place.

Speaker 1

Yeah. The way I described it was shopping with an agent feels like looking through a pinhole. You give it instructions and it only looks for that. It can sometimes look wider, but you really need to give it feedback. You know, I don't like these options. Can you look for something more like this? And some of the agents do kind of learn your preferences. You can tell them, you know, save this information for later. But as humans, we change our minds all the time. So I found that it is. It can be quite tedious, actually. You

Speaker 3

know, on the other hand, you ran an experiment where AI maybe performed too well. Tell me about your experiment with the site, The Real Real.

Speaker 1

Yeah, so The Real Real is a secondhand luxury fashion site. And when you put something in your cart, the Real Real puts it on hold for you for 20 minutes and it makes it so nobody else can buy the product. Andrew Davis few weeks ago, I realized I could have Meta's Muse agent add 10 or 20 items to…

Speaker 3

It's a lot of power to give a person an AI agent. Yes. Yes. Well, I want to also look at this from the retailer's perspective because I mean, even your experience with The Real Real, there is a question here about quality of customer experience when you let an agent in. How do retailers and brands…

Speaker names come from our own diarization. The position is estimated from where the line sits in the episode.

Collections They Appear In

Money & Markets Tech Strategy & Big Tech