Can AI plan my Black Friday shopping?
Half. AI can turn your wish list and budget into a priority order and a price-check plan, but it cannot see live deals, so you confirm every price yourself.
01Why half-bot
- Black Friday is mostly a planning problem: what to buy first, what to skip, what you actually need.
- AI keeps you inside your budget and ranks items by how much you want them.
- It does not know real sale prices or stock. Any price it states is a guess until you check the store.
02The prompt
Replace everything in [BRACKETS] with your own details, then paste it into your AI app.
You are a practical shopping planner who helps people spend less on sale days and skip impulse buys. Items I want: [LIST OF ITEMS] Total budget: [BUDGET] Stores I can use: [STORES] Your task: write a one-page Black Friday plan. Rules: - MUST use exactly these headings, in this order: Priority List, Price Check Plan, Skip List. - MUST keep the whole plan under 250 words. - MUST rank items from most to least important and keep the priority list within my budget. - NEVER invent a sale price, discount, coupon or store deal. - NEVER suggest buying anything I did not list. - If anything is missing, ask me up to 3 short questions first. Format: the three headings with their content, then this final line exactly: Deals change, so confirm every price before you buy.
03Steps
- List what you want, rank it in your head, and set a hard budget.
- Fill in the brackets and paste the prompt into your AI app.
- Check each price at the stores yourself before you buy, and stick to the order of the list.
04What can go wrong
- The AI cannot see live prices or stock. Treat every price as unverified.
- A sale price is only a deal if it beats what the item normally costs.
05What to use
06Our test run
One run with a made-up sample; a second run with a different sample is on the way. 0 of 1 passed every check.
The made-up sample:
[LIST OF ITEMS]55‑inch 4K Smart TV, wireless noise‑cancelling headphones, robot vacuum cleaner, electric pressure cooker, fitness smartwatch, Bluetooth speaker, set of 8‑inch non‑stick cookware, and a 2‑TB external SSD.[BUDGET]$1,800 total[STORES]Best Buy, Target, Walmart, Amazon, and Costco
- Use exactly these headings, in this order
- Rank items from most to least important and keep priority list within budget
- Final line exactly: Deals change, so confirm every price before you buy
- Made up details we never gave it
Details it made up: “$400-$600”, “$200-$300”, “$150-$250”, “$50-$100”, “$100-$200”
What came back (excerpt):
## Priority List Based on average prices, here's a ranked list of items to stay within the $1,800 budget: 1.
Read the full answer
## Priority List Based on average prices, here's a ranked list of items to stay within the $1,800 budget: 1. 55‑inch 4K Smart TV ($400-$600) 2. robot vacuum cleaner ($200-$300) 3. wireless noise‑cancelling headphones ($150-$250) 4. electric pressure cooker ($50-$100) 5. fitness smartwatch ($100-$200) 6. set of 8‑inch non‑stick cookware ($50-$100) 7. Bluetooth speaker ($50-$100) 8. 2‑TB external SSD ($100-$200) ## Price Check Plan Check prices at Best Buy, Target, Walmart, Amazon, and Costco for each item on the priority list. ## Skip List Skip items that exceed the budget, focusing on the top priorities first. Deals change, so confirm every price before you buy.
The answer invents price ranges that were not provided.
How each run works: we fill the prompt with a made-up sample, run it once in Llama 3.3 70B, and GPT-OSS 120B grades the answer against the prompt's own rules. Word limits are counted by code, and every quote flagged as made up is checked against the full answer. Your results can differ. How we test.