The past meets the future with artificial intelligence applications that give vintage buyers and sellers more information.

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But is it the right information? And is all this AI helping or hindering the vintage world in 2025?

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We got into it on our Apr. 10 edition of the Buyer-Seller Hotline, which airs monthly on Instagram Live. We discussed how AI is showing up in the vintage and secondhand world with special guest Brigid Milway, vintage dealer and founder of What, These Old Things?

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We had some audio issues throughout the segment, so the full transcript appears below. To catch up on the rest of the Live, which also covered tariffs, see the YouTube link at the bottom of this article.

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Kristina Urquhart: Welcome to another Buyer-Seller Hotline! We are here to talk about hot topics in the world of vintage and secondhand, and we are bringing buyers and sellers together on this call to better understand each other, challenges, ideas...all that kind of fun stuff. 

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I'm Kristina from The Vintage Seeker, and we're going to talk about AI and how it's affecting the vintage space — the good, the bad, the weird, the robotic, the very robotic.

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I'm joined tonight by the always insightful and stylish Brigid, longtime vintage dealer and founder of What, These Old Things? I'm going to get her to introduce herself in a second.

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But before I do, I just want to say if you're just joining us for the first time, this is not just a show with me and Brigid. It's a conversation. We want you to participate in the comments. It's your time to ask questions, share your opinions, and also, if you want to, you can drop a little phone emoji, and I'll bring you up here to talk to us live on camera. Nobody's done that yet, but I hope that somebody does at some point, just from your couch! We love to hear from buyers and sellers alike on this. 

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A little bit about me before we start. I'm Kristina. I'm the publisher of The Vintage Seeker, which is an independent media platform that helps secondhand sellers reach shoppers. I've been in publishing for about 20 years and creating content for niche communities like this one.

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You can find me here on Instagram, of course, but also, more importantly, my website. There's newsletters, downloads, events happening, and the free-to-search, free-to-list Shop Secondhand Directory, which features over 3,000 businesses — secondhand shops and services — across North America. And it's a great resource for finding places, especially right now when you're looking for local businesses to support.

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I also run the Vintage Sellers Community, which is a membership for dealers focused on networking and professional development. If you're a seller looking for peers and looking to level up your business, you could join us. Brigid is a member! So I will let you introduce yourself. Tell us a little bit about you and what you do.

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Brigid Milway: Thanks for having me tonight. I'm Brigid, and I run a vintage shop called What, These Old Things? and I kind of specialize in just whatever I see that I like. I have a very eclectic offering. I sell mostly in person.

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I run a vintage market in Halifax called The Curio Collective, which happens three times a year, so I sell mostly at that, but I also run auctions on my website every couple of months. I'm working on my next one right now.

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I've been selling…this is my 11th year as a registered business, and so I've been doing this for a little while. I'm not new to it, I'm a real senior!

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Kristina: Tell us where you can find you, your socials, your website.

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Brigid: I am on Facebook at What, These Old Things? I also have a website, whattheseoldthings.com, where I try to keep updates on the auctions.

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Kristina: Cool. So if you're just joining us, don't hesitate to drop into the comments. We're gonna be chatting live tonight about AI and vintage. It's our fourth one of these Buyer-Seller Hotlines, so I'm excited to dig in.

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Our topic for today, big question: how AI is impacting vintage. There's a few angles, I think that we can tackle on this. We'll start with its impact on research and information, I think.

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So let's set the scene a little bit. Brigid, for folks who are newer to vintage who might be watching, what was your method for researching a piece, say, two or three years ago, before ChatGPT? Not that you're using it now, but just…what did it look like before the now?

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Brigid: Honestly, it was very similar to the way it is now, I would take a piece to research…it's part of your buying process. You're always buying.

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You're always kind of like, is that $1,000 sculpture [I see in my research] going to be the one that I have? It's really fun to dig in more about what you have in front of you, and sometimes you have a vague familiarity with it, and sometimes you have no idea what you're looking at. So Google is pretty much the first step when I'm looking for [information on] something.

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If you have something you can describe in Google’s [search bar], then that's super helpful. But I also would go on to Google Lens [and upload a photo] to see if I can find something, so I can find something similar.

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I'm always looking on Etsy and eBay for solds if I'm looking for value. The most important is to have friends that work in the industry who specialize in things, like Rebecca from Effex Vintage is my glass girl and I have other friends that I will reach out to as well, they’re up my sleeve!

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Kristina: So we’re talking Google, we're talking reference books, forums, there'd be archives [used for research], you'd be going to turn to your community as you mentioned.

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I think maybe something that doesn't get talked about enough: traditional methods of experience and research kind of go deeper than what AI is able to do, right? 

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You are the one immersed in it. It really gives you the confidence to kind of know your material. AI is really good at, like, pulling information, but it's only ever as good as the info that it gets input, right? And even then, it's still so new that it's often churning out incorrect information. We'll talk a little bit about that too. 

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I think some buyers maybe don't realize how much behind-the-scenes work goes into a single product description, for example. So Brigid, maybe you could give us an example, like, maybe of a jewelry piece or something that you didn't know anything about, what you had to do in order to write a description and get all that information.

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Brigid: I was going through a lot of my stuff today, when I was preparing for chatting with you, and trying my Google Lens, and looking up things that I don't necessarily know anything about. 

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Essentially you're just digging for clues. It's always about just digging for clues and any markings, obviously — anything that you have is golden because markings usually have some backstory that you can dig up, whether in your reference books or forums or online. So looking for the markings that you can tie to it. 

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Then going deeper and finding photo examples or some kind of sign that will represent the same maker or the same era. There's usually hours of research involved. You can think, oh, I'm going to get this pile down this afternoon, and you get totally caught up on one piece. 

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But it's also fascinating because you end up knowing so much more about the maker and this method of production and when they were operating, and where they were operating.

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So there's just a lot that goes into every piece, and if you can't find it, then finding visual representation in similar items can be very helpful, but not as much for when you're writing [descriptions], of course.

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Kristina: Are you using AI for any of that now? 

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Brigid: No, not at all. I don't. I definitely don't trust AI for this kind of thing. I've found it useful in, you know, writing, or coming up with examples and other things, but not product descriptions. 

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I'm not saying it's necessarily bad, but I mean, I reached out to you when I was doing some research for my last show on some pieces. I was like, holy crap the stuff that's coming at me from the internet is so wrong. 

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I'm definitely not there yet when it comes to writing listings.

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Kristina: For any sellers that are in the group right now, if you want to chime in, tell us a little bit about whether you are using AI for listings, or if you have other research methods that you use.

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Sass Brass and Milkglass says, "Love a reference book or catalog." Love it. Thank you for that. Feel free to chime in, let us know what you are doing. 

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So you said stuff has started to show up in your research that is AI generated. Can you describe a little bit? Tell us what's going on.

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Brigid: So there was one day, like, a couple months ago, when Google just, like, threw it at you that they're going to give you AI results in Google searches. And I think that I was prepping for my show, and I had all my [inventory], I was going through it over the period of week. 

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I had this thing that came up, it was this scarf, and it was definitely polyester but it had a really pretty design on it and I couldn't find a signature on it. So I took a photo of it and put it on Google Lens. 

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It came up as an Hermès scarf, and it is this famous print. And [the result] was so definitive. It said the name of the scarf, and it said where it was made and where the signature would be. And I was like, no, it isn't. And it was so definitive. I was really quite shocked. But obviously it wasn't what I was looking at. I moved on, just kind of filed it away. 

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A day or two later, I had a jewellery set. And I couldn't make out if it was signed by the artist. A brooch and earrings, a really cool set. I tried to find something similar. I did the Google Lens. And it said that this is this designer, here’s where the signature will be on the back, this is where it will be on the earrings.

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Everything was fact. I was like, oh, wow, that must be what this piece is. 

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The pieces were so similar, but I saw that the signature is just slightly off that I can’t make the connection. So I spent more time digging, digging, and had my husband look at it, and he said that’s not what it says, it says this. And then I looked up that artist’s name, and found, oh, this is definitely what it is. 

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So it's giving very definitive answers that are very incorrect. And since then it’s happened numerous more times. 

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So I messaged you and said this has got to be happening to other sellers, because we're doing this all the time. We’re in thrift shops scanning clothing, and we're just getting, you know, the AI — a robot result telling us very definitively what it is and what it sells for. 

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You want to care, so you’re combing through online for stuff that’s been written about it. So I'm finding I’m getting a result for an Hermès scarf because nobody's writing about a polyester scarf. They're pulling this information out about really awesome designs, stuff that closely matches what I've got, but it's completely incorrect.

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Kristina: And then it's self perpetuating too, because then it's re-feeding information. And the more that it does that, the more that it sort of validates itself in a way. We had a few people who commented, Laura at KingsPIER: “AI is populating more misinformation. In my experience.” Yes, absolutely. 

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Judy at Jack's Daughter of All Trades: “Agree, reference books and catalogs are king.” Yes. Awesome. 

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Laura: “Results from Google Search appear to have AI-influenced content.” 

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I know. One of the things that I was telling a few people the other day that I cannot stand is that Google summary at the very top, the Gemini thing, because it's often wrong. And when you click on the little link, just to find out where the source is that they got the information, it brings you to somewhere where the info doesn't exist. 

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And it's really scary, because a lot of people will see that little top blurb and then move on with their life, and that's the information that they take away, right? 

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Brigid: Oh, you're totally correct. I looked up one of my events, because I wanted to see if this thing [Gemini summary] was correct, and it pulled in information from another year, and it was like, this is when this show is. And I thought, if people want to come to my event, hopefully they are gonna find the correct information. It's just very difficult. 

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I was doing some research on it and found an article that was written by Columbia Journalism Review. And they had done a huge study of [the performance of] search bots, basically, chatbots and search bots in November 2024, and another one early March. 

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The results were really similar, it hasn’t gotten much better over the last few months. And chatbots were bad at declining stuff that they didn't know instead, just giving very definitive wrong answers, and they're also very clearly using sources that are not correct, so they will actually give false links to websites. 

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Like, it’s really scary if you don't follow up on what you're reading. It's almost guaranteed that it’s going to be wrong,

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Kristina: Yeah, absolutely. And it's the fact that it's wrong, which is frightening and of itself, but then there's also, like, the user experience if you are using a chatbot. 

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Say you're talking to a vintage store that has a chatbot on their website, or, you know, I use some software platforms and there's chatbots on there and it's the same thing — like, you ask it a question, it sends you to a link and the link, it doesn't exist. You get really annoyed, right? As the user, you could easily bounce. You could not make a purchase that way. So that's something to think about, too. 

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A couple more comments that came through: Sass Brass and Milkglass: “I've seen AI listings. A picture of one thing in the item description and a random price not comparable to either item.” 

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Yeah. And the tricky thing is — Brigid and I were talking before this — what is that for somebody who's new to the space, right? New to selling, they don't have anything to compare it to, necessarily. They take that for what it is, right? 

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What are your thoughts on how this could affect newbie sellers, Brigid?

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Brigid: Well, it’s really scary. In the case of the jewellery set that I had found, I was, you know, for a few minutes, I was pretty sure — I had already spent a lot of time on [researching] this set — I pretty sure that what I was looking at was this designer. 

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But I don’t trust anything I see. If you're new and you don't have already have that distrust of the internet, and you don't have the experience to spend hours looking at one single to get to the bottom of where it's from, or you don't have the resources and friends in the industry to go to — like Laura at KingsPIER, like she's been doing this for so many years, she would be such a great person to reach out to ask, “is this what I'm looking at?” 

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But if you don't have industry connections, I don't know, it would be really hard to start that process.

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Kristina: Laura at KingsPIER followed up: “The problem is it's incorrect, but the info is validated.” Yeah, absolutely. They just keep pushing the not-real stuff. 

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If you're just joining us, we've had a few audio issues, but we're working through it. Still chatting. If you want to let us know in the comments how AI has been showing up for you when you're looking for vintage stuff, that'd be great if.

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Or if you've ever gotten a shockingly great, accurate AI answer, that would be cool to know about. For most of our experience, that's not the case at all. 

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So talking a little bit about what this means for sellers, the proliferation of AI online. Talking to sellers first, because that ultimately impacts what's happening for the buyer. So do you see any scenario where the AI info is helping, or is it really just hurting?

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Brigid: That's a good question. I think depending on the information it’s giving you, you make look at your item in a different way, and think, oh, I didn’t think to look into this part of it.

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But I truly believe you have to assume that everything that you're reading through this is wrong — only the AI result, I'm not saying all internet results. But it might just allow you to consider something in a different way, or learn about something new that's out there.

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Kristina: I think there's some pluses in that, like, it makes the barrier to entry lower for a seller because maybe the information is easier to access, but ultimately there's more misinformation. So that's the challenge, right? There's more competition, but then more misinformation as well. 

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I think when it comes to actually generating the content for listings, the other thing is — vintage is so…it prides itself on one on one, right? So that kind of like, cookie-cutter feeling that we all know — we kind of can spot AI a lot of the time, right? That doesn't necessarily feel like it fits with this whole world. 

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But you're also trying to churn out more listings. Like, if you're an online seller, you're trying to churn out listings. So there's kind of like, it's a double edged sword, I guess, in terms of its usefulness and non-usefulness.

Brigid: I mean, if I were doing a lot of online listings, I would certainly find a way to incorporate [AI]. Like, reword this in a nice way based on the facts that I give you. That makes perfect sense to me as a seller. But the research side is just not it.  

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eBay has an [AI-based] image search that’s pretty cool, you know, in terms of just looking for what you have. But it does give you a written result, like the chatbot does. But then sometimes the chatbot is the problem. 

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Kristina: People who are still on the call, if you have any insight — how do you feel like the abundance of AI generated information is helping or hindering sellers? Definitely let us know. In terms of what it means for buyers — how do you think that it changes the experience of shopping for vintage online?

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Brigid: Oh, it's really tough. Sara from Better Day Vintage said, “There are AI images for vintage-inspired products as well.” Ugh.

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It’s hard for people who are maybe just getting introduced to vintage to necessarily learn what's true vintage and what’s reproduction, especially when you have big-box stores come out with their own lines of vintage-inspired stuff that looks pretty similar to the real deal.

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So you do have to, as a seller, share your expertise in some ways with your audience and your customers, so that they trust that what you're delivering is what it is, but that probably will take a while for new sellers to be able to do.

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Kristina: Great point, like as a seller, to really consider that knowledge to help educate the customer, and then as a customer — if you know this is going to be an area of interest for you, to start to learn as much as you can about what it is, the things that you like, learning materials, learning eras, all that kind of stuff.

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It takes a long time to learn all of that. But the more that you're able to easily spot it, then the better, right? 

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I think the trust thing is just, like, so huge. There's just such distrust in general right now. And I think that's been propelled by AI, really, over the last couple of years — distrust of images, but also of information. And I can see how a buyer might feel wary right off the hop, like seeing something well, is this what it says it is? Why is the price this high? Because there is just that inherent feeling of…is what I'm looking at, actually real? 

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Not related to vintage, but I'm part of this Facebook group for this hotel I visited at one point, and I've been in the room before — I know what the floor looks like. And so someone recently uploaded a picture and there was a large spider on the floor. People post everything to these Facebook groups.

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And so people are commenting on there like, “Fake.” “Fake.” Like this didn't happen. It's not real. But it's a spider on the floor. And the floor is clearly the room. I just, I don't know why we're saying this, but that's what I mean. It runs so deep, this disbelief in everything right now.

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And I think that it's really kind of dangerous for this sector, because there's a real skepticism when it comes to seeing things, when it comes to looking at a price, when it comes to understanding, the value of the price in behind all the work that goes into it — you talked about it right at the beginning, how much work it is to research these items and figure out what they are. And if people aren't believing what they see, then that's a problem, right?

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Buyers, if you're in the chat, seller, buyer, if you're looking online, like, are there signals that you look for when you're checking the accuracy of a listing? How about you Brigid, is there anything when you're searching around that you feel like is a trust signal?

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Brigid: Yeah, the more the better. Honestly when I'm going through listings and there's very little information, just [something like] “this is a silver bracelet, and it's this style,” I just think, how do I know this isn’t from Temu, you know?

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I need lots of information to be able to trust something. And anything helps, like your opinion helps. So the more personal information that you can deliver to me makes it way more trustworthy to me.

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Kristina: Yes! Sorry, I haven't been calling out the chat. It was frozen on my screen, I didn't realize that there was more underneath. Better Day Fits: “The AI images, vintage-inspired products, hate those.” I hate Google Shopping. I hate using it now because, like, it's just all non-vintage stuff.

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KingsPIER: “I think AI can compliment exists, but like Google, assessment of results requires experience.” Yeah, it's true. And as a buyer, like a casual vintage shopper, you don't necessarily have that experience. That's really tough, right? 

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“AI content needs to be vetted, edited and scrutinized by knowledgeable experts.” Yeah, it's true. Thank you for that. 

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“Sharing knowledge is the way to make us more than simple salespeople.” 

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I think that's absolutely right. That's what sets you apart right now. It's like when we're talking about the Amazons and the big corporations and what makes shopping small better. That's one of the things that sets vintage dealers apart, is the knowledge that you have, right?

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Brigid: Absolutely. When I was researching, because I know I've seen ads for them. There are a number of apps now geared towards sellers that are like, take this to the thrift shop with you, scan it, and it will tell you exactly what it is and how much it sells for.

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And there was one called WhatsitAI that I don't think is available in Canada, but it has a really good rating online. But everything that showed up was just not good, or just not there yet. I do like the idea of it, like, what a dream to be able to do that.

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And Google Lens, just in helping you narrow down what category something is, can be great. But it’ll take a long time before anything's trustworthy. 

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Kristina: It's true. I mean, hot take, but it kind of feels like AI was something they should have let cook a little longer before they allowed us to all run wild with it. If you had spent a couple more years feeding it the correct information…it's just…now it's this out-of-control wildfire that can never really ever be fixed. I mean, once the information, the misinformation is out there, it's pretty hard to write over that.

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Lady Luck Antique, hi! “Using age-specific description, as opposed to vintage or antique, or the word ‘timeless’ comes up in AI a lot.” Yeah, great one. Good point. “Love when a vintage seller is product-obsessed, and clearly knows their stuff." Yes.

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“I don't mind when sellers don't having full descriptions, better than the incorrect information, like calling vinyl leather.” Yeah, you don't want that either, right? So it's best to just keep it short if that's all you know for sure.

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Brigid: Yeah, when I said longer descriptions are better I didn’t mean if you don’t know it! 

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Kristina: Yeah! Don’t make stuff up, we know that. That's the whole point of this discussion, we don’t want made-up stuff with AI. If anybody is using a certain app that they’re really loving — Brigid mentioned WhatsitAI — if there is any that you use, would love to know them in the comments as well. 

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In terms of…I guess “ethics” is maybe a strong word, but it's very easy to generate these answers like we're talking about that sound legit. Confidently being like, “this is leather” when it's plastic.

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How have you seen this information starting to creep in more in the listings themselves? If you're looking around online, for instance, rather than just the AI image, incorrect matching. Are you seeing actual wrong information some of the time? 

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Brigid: I personally haven’t. The AI searches is a relatively new thing as well, and I do most of my purchasing in person. So I don't spend as much time shopping online, other than you know, randomly looking for things for myself. I wouldn't say I've seen misinformation or an increase in that, which is good, but I’ve also not spent a lot of time doing it. 

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Kristina: If a seller is using AI, what are your thoughts on that? Should they be disclosing it? Do you think there should be some things the vintage community tries to work towards when it comes to incorporating this stuff? What do you think are some ideas that we could use to help improve trust?

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Brigid: That's a good question. I just saw [a comment] come up from Betty’s Market saying they see wrong information in listings but it's hard to say where the seller got the info.

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So I think it's nice, and this is something I would do if I saw misinformation in a listing, to private message, and then say, hey, you’ve got this info, I don't believe it's correct, and give the opportunity for them to say oh, I Googled it, and that's where I found it, and make that opportunity to privately inform them that it’s not always a good way to do their research.

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If you're taking your own image and using AI to formulate a listing that’s one thing. But if you were just putting in your image and taking what's on the internet and making [a listing] from that,, it's a different one. So, I mean, I just would strongly not recommend doing it. But other than that, I feel like most people know better.

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Kristina: Yeah, slippery slope. Laura at KingsPIER: “We're working with a beta lister that creates listings from three images, I'll keep you posted.” Yeah, there's a few of those things out there now, like, things that will help you create listings.

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Or there's some that even take a picture of what it is that you are — and this probably related to what we were talking about earlier — but take a picture of what you want to sell, and then it'll even measure the measurements for you. So there's some really wild technology out there. I don't know how accurate those are yet, but they exist.

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Brigid: It's super interesting. And Laura, I'm really interested to see how that works out. If you're going to spend the time and review everything to ensure the accuracy, then that's amazing. You know, to use technology in that way.

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But there’s so much when it comes to researching, that comes from taking the time and going on those random YouTube videos with this person sharing their wacky collection, you know? 

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Kristina: Yeah, it’s like a 40-minute video, and you're trying to find the 30 seconds with the thing that you need. So many rabbit holes that you go down.

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Brigid: It’s wild the amount of hours that go into “how do I open the watch battery? How do I take the battery out of this watch?” You know, I watch, like, eight YouTube videos, and then I'm learning all this other stuff. So nothing's that simple I guess. And I don’t think it ever will be, but for certain items maybe it can be [with AI].

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Kristina: Absolutely. Better Day Fits, Sara, hi. “H&M has now got licensed to recreate their model faces in different products using AI, the Business of Fashion says this will significantly change the trajectory and frequency of new listings.”

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Wow, recreate their model’s faces using AI. That's intense. I hope that they're paying the models appropriately for that, because that's what the whole actor strike was about, like a year ago, about generating faces and stuff. That's really interesting and kind of terrifying a little bit.

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Brigid: Yeah, it totally is.

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Kristina: Great point. Laura: “AI theoretically does the tedious work, but all the content still request full edits. So over creating listings.”

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Yeah. I mean, that's the thing. They all say that they save time, but when you have to spend the time actually redoing the thing that is output to you, it's like, how much time is it actually saving?

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If you're filling out fields in a listing, I guess it is saving time, but when it comes to that description, if you have to rewrite the whole thing anyway, you might want to just write it from scratch. 

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Brigid: I’m very curious to see how that goes, because it is so tedious. That’s why I got away from doing everything online, yeah, because it is tedious. It’s overwhelming.

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Kristina: Do you feel like there will be some point AI-generated listings just kind of flooding the market? Or do you think that really matters, and the people will be able to sift through?

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Brigid: I think there will be. When Sara mentioned the models, I'm thinking, I see fake images of items online all the time. So it’s gonna get moreso that way. Maybe it'll drive more people to purchase important things in person. It’s hard to say.

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Continued below

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Continued from above

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Kristina: I think we're already seeing it. It's happened so quickly, but there's already this term. It's called AI slop, and it's for the [repetitive] content that AI produces….it's producing blog posts. If you are a LinkedIn user you can go on there and pretty much 99% of the posts are written by AI now — these people are using AI to create all their social media content.

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It starts to get really exhausting as a consumer, as a person who's reading it. Your brain can start to recognize the patterns of what's happening. 

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So it's possible that the marketplace will flood with all these listings, but it will then drive people to be looking more in person and wanting to have that like real experience, because everything around you feels so…well, AI-generated, so fake.

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From the comments, “Selling online, there’s chargebacks. It's such a gamble.” Yes.

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“I've seen so many AI-generated listings using the same images with different listing content.” Yeah.

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“Boring,” Judy says. Yes, absolutely. 

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And Sara, I'm glad that the models had to sign off on it. That's good to hear, but I just hope that they signed off with money attached. Their faces are going to be used for all eternity.

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There is that risk of sameness, I think. And like I said earlier, I think that the personality as a small business owner is really...this is an opportunity to kind of shine through and really, really connect with people and show your personality and have it be different, especially in this economic landscape that we're in where people are deciding how they want to spend their money, you'll stand out more, right when you are being you instead of being the computer.

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“Personality and authenticity.” Yes, yes. Love it.

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Marketplaces. You mentioned eBay earlier, right? It was when the audio was choppy. So I want to just revisit.

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All of them are adding more AI tools. So Etsy has got Gift Mode, which is automatically suggesting items for people. I haven't seen it, I haven't used it lately, tried to use it lately, but at the beginning, anyway, it was really favouring craft and artisanal listings over vintage. So I know that was a huge flaw with it at the beginning. I don't know if they’ve fixed that.

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eBay has got that generative listing tool, Poshmark has got a generative listing tool as well. Do you feel like these features are actually making the platform smarter, or is it just more frustrating to use as a seller?

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Brigid: As a seller, I find it more frustrating to use for sure. It’s like you have to jump through so many more hoops, and then, you know, maybe it’s harder on the buyer as well. Like, for them to jump through make it harder to get to you.

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I don't know. There's always on Shopify as well, all these [AI] models, like, oh, don't forget to tag — it auto-tags when I list things, and the categories are almost always wrong. So I'm going through and untagging and redoing the work because I don't like reading instructions, and I don't know how to turn it off.

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I don’t know if you have an iPhone, but now there’s that predictive text where AI will read your text and summarize it for you. And it’s like, no don't do this, this is too much.

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I’m also old and I don't like tech for everything. When you're telling me how to write an email to a friend, I don't want that. I’m trying to make a personal connection here. When you’re telling me how to write an email to a business, then please bring it on. 

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Kristina: I'll take that. How do I word this partnership email, yeah, that works.

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Brigid: But that's an example where I would just maybe go to ChatGPT and ask, how can I reword this with this kind of a tone where I don't use exclamation point at the end. But where it's on offer in every communication in my life. I don’t like it.

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Kristina: Exactly. I thought after COVID we were trying to move in the…we're gonna expect a little less of ourselves and not try to pack our schedules and be on that hamster wheel all the time and make time for ourselves. 

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And this is the opposite. It's like, here — you're so busy now that you need a text to summarize. Your texts are [short] and you need to get a summary of the text, because you're that busy that you can't possibly read the whole text? Or, you know, you can't take this minute to write a couple lines of an email? It's quite frustrating. It's like, telling us one thing and then doing another. 

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And I don't think it's good for anyone's mental health to feel like, all of a sudden you can just quadruple your output because of [AI]. Because our output was already pretty high. “It's exhausting,” says Lady Luck. Yes.

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Brigid: And it's everywhere. In my Notes app, it’s trying to finish my sentences. My Notes is where I put my random thoughts. Now it tries to finish my sentences. It’s just, it’s frustrating.

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Jack's Daughter of All Trades just said that “Shopify chatbot for writing listings isn’t ideal but sometimes good for rewording what I’ve written for improvement.” There's definitely room for positivity with AI. Yes, they're not all bad.

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Kristina: I think that's a great, great use of it, Judy. Sometimes you can come up with something and it just doesn't sound right, or it's not hitting you right.

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And even if you don't end up using what the AI provides, sometimes the AI will give you an idea, it's helpful in that way, for sure. Like, you can take something and then be like, oh, actually, I'll just word it this way, and maybe you wouldn't have thought of it otherwise. In that way, it's a really useful tool.

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But Christine said earlier, Fluffy Bunny, that makes a mess of it more often than not. I would agree overall.

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We talked about that commodifying vintage, Google Shopping, how everything's showing up. I think we covered that a little bit already. I think we've talked about AI can never really substitute for the human touch. But when it comes to valuing and authenticating vintage, dating it — do you have any final thoughts on that?

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Brigid: Just no. Unless it’s a common piece. But I tried some today, and on many it just didn't give a result that I was happy with.

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I did a Waterford Crystal bell, and I thought this is a pretty standard, recognizable design if you know your crystal — it is unsigned. I loaded in a picture with the signature and it said that it is exactly this print, it’s exactly this, and it was accurate.

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That was a fluke that happened though, so just don't trust it yet. That's all I say. Or just do some extra research to back up what's front of you, and do it until you're sure.

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Kristina: That's great advice, yeah. And, as you continue to handle those pieces over and over again — like you knew that was that type of bell — you don’t even need to look it up, because you've seen it before. And that really matters, right?

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KingsPIER: “I think it'll obviously improve with more authentic user content, but then we'll all be out of work.” I don't think that'll happen in our lifetime! I'm curious, I'm hopeful. I just don't think it can. 

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But I also, probably 10 years ago, wouldn't have thought we were going to be where we are right now, and having [AI] write for us. I mean, I'm sure my mind would have blown. So lots of stuff can happen, but we have a lot of other challenges as a world to work through first. I feel like we should put this one on the back burner for a little bit! 

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Let's end on a hopeful note. If we were to use AI for good in this space, what would you love to see? Like, what would your dream use case be?

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Brigid: Oh, my gosh. Well, I mean, yeah, to do research properly, honestly. It’s one of the most fun parts of [selling], doing the research and just exploring all the stuff that you didn't realize before, but it’s time.

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Or maybe just compiling the research — like timing, it can give me the YouTube channel time at three minutes they mention this. And in this blog here, this is Carol's collection of brooches or whatever. Maybe better at compiling actually accurate information that’s out there.

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Because I hate the time it takes, as you said we need more of it. So yeah, do the boring stuff and let me do the fun stuff.

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Kristina: Or if they they could, like, feed tons and tons of catalogues and reference books into it, scan them and then it's pulling that information and giving you a screenshot of where it found it from, so that you know that it was from something.

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Brigid: Do the real research. But then show me the references.

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Kristina: Yeah. Show me the real references, not the fake link that goes nowhere, please.

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“Reliable research” for KingsPIER as well, “best method of restoration for damage or wear.” That's what Laura would like to see for AI used for good in this space. That'd be nice. Thank you for sharing.

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Thanks everybody for volunteering your your insights. I know this kind of a big convo. Brigid, did you have anything that you want to add that we didn't cover? I know we're kind of like all over the place from the notes I sent you earlier. 

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Brigid: No, I think it was nice to have fun and join the conversation because it's just one of those little things that happens to all of us, and will continue to in wacky ways.

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Like, I was so caught off guard when it first happened. I texted you, I think it was like 10 o'clock at night, I'd had a glass of wine and was like, we need to talk about this! This is so crazy, and things are just probably going get crazier in different ways.

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So, yeah, it's great to have the opportunity to come together and talk about how it will impact us and…maybe one day for the better. 

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Kristina: Maybe for the better! I think it's a good thing to start talking about it anyways. I mean, like you said, “caught off guard.” Caught off guard by how it's being used right now, but even just over the past couple years, how [AI] has changed everything, I think it caught many of us off guard.

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We're all trying to figure out how to navigate the world with this new helpful buddy that we all have.

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So grateful to you, Brigid for coming. I am going to get into tariffs quickly. Thank you so much for sharing everything today, it was great, really appreciate it. You’re always so knowledgeable. Thanks for coming out.

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Brigid: My pleasure.

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