AI Price Checker

AI Price Checker adds a panel to the product edit page that answers one question fast: “How does my price compare to what competitors are charging — right now?” It uses Google Gemini with Search Grounding to find the exact same product at other retailers, reads the price each page actually shows, converts everything to a like-for-like ex-VAT figure, and ranks your price against the field.

Compatibility

Magento

Open Source 2.4.9 GA (and later 2.4.x).

PHP

Tested on 8.4 and 8.5.

AI engine

Google Gemini + Search Grounding (your own API key).

Storage

Ephemeral — no tables, no cron, nothing saved. Results are live.

How it works

1. On any product, open the AI Price Checker panel. Optionally paste up to 3 competitor URLs — or leave them blank to auto-search.

2. Click Check Competitor Prices. Gemini searches the web (and reads any URLs you gave it) for the exact product in your store’s country.

3. Each competitor comes back with its price, whether the page showed it inc or ex VAT, stock status, a confidence rating, and a link.

4. Every price is normalised to ex-VAT so the comparison is apples-to-apples, and your price is ranked against them (position, cheapest, % difference).

Give it URLs for certainty

Leave the URL boxes blank and it auto-searches. Paste a competitor’s product URL and it will read that exact page first — the most reliable result, because it copies the number the page shows rather than guessing.

VAT is handled properly

Cross-retailer price comparison is meaningless if one price includes VAT and another doesn’t. This is where most tools fall down — and where this one is careful.

• The AI observes and reports what each page shows (the price and any inc/ex VAT label) — it is explicitly told not to do the VAT maths itself.
• Magento then converts to ex-VAT deterministically in PHP, preferring an explicitly-stated ex- or inc-VAT figure, then the labelled price, and only assuming “inc” as a last resort (flagged, with confidence capped to low).
• The store’s standard VAT rate is resolved from your Default Country (UK 20%, DE 19%, IE 23%, US/CA 0%, …) — or you can set a VAT Rate Override to force one.

Why ex-VAT?

Reducing every competitor to ex-VAT removes the single biggest source of false comparisons (consumer sites quote inc-VAT, trade sites quote ex-VAT). You see the true wholesale-level gap, with the inc-VAT figure shown alongside for reference.

Configuration

Stores → Configuration → AgenticEcom · AI → AI Price Checker (the AI Price Checker panel itself appears on each product’s edit page, under the Price field).

Field	What it does
Enable AI Price Checker	Show the 🔍 panel on product edit pages (per store).
Google AI API Key	Your own Gemini key (stored encrypted, sent in a request header, never the URL).
AI Model	The Gemini model used for the grounded search.
VAT / Tax Rate Override (%)	Force a VAT rate for ex-VAT conversion. Blank = auto-detect from your store’s Default Country.

FAQ

Does it save competitor prices anywhere?

No — it’s completely ephemeral. There are no database tables and no cron jobs; each check is a live lookup and the results are shown inline. Run it whenever you want a current snapshot.

How does it avoid comparing inc-VAT against ex-VAT prices?

The AI reports the price and the VAT label exactly as the page shows them; Magento then converts everything to ex-VAT in PHP using your store’s standard rate. Explicitly-stated figures are used as-is; only a genuinely unlabelled price is assumed inc-VAT (and flagged with low confidence).

Will it match similar products or accessories?

It’s instructed to match the exact product only — by model number, SKU or exact name — not alternatives, bundles or accessories, and to use the current selling price (not RRP or out-of-stock prices).

Is it secure?

The panel sits behind the AgenticEcom_AiPricing::check permission and config behind ::config. Your API key is encrypted and sent in a header. Competitor URLs returned by the AI are validated (only well-formed http/https links are surfaced), so a malformed or unsafe link can’t reach the admin UI. Verified clean on PHP 8.4 and 8.5.