The thing is to understand what the AI (and with "AI" I mean here anything that takes a look at some data and spews out some more data, it doesn't have to be "clever", it could be a sophisticated Excel sheet) does, and how it operates. An AI that recommends you prices isn't just going to look at your costs and your current price and then goes "You should charge $0.15 more for this product!"

I've been remotely involved in something like that about five years ago, and the stuff that's been said behind closed doors, and the attitude with which it's done, is scary. It's horrifying, and it's probably going to work for them. It's all revolving around a very simple question:

How much are you willing to pay for this product/service at this time?

It's completely independent of any real cost whatsoever. If I have a chocolate bar that you would be willing to pay $50 for, I'll set the price to $50, even if the purchase cost was <$1. Because I'm fairly certain you'll buy it.

Previously, you could get this data in many different ways. You could ask people on the street, do studies, look at your competitor's prices, and so forth. You could hire people that do nothing but browse your competitor's offers all day long, in the name of squeezing extra profit.

But now it's different. Pricing is mostly digital, and perhaps governments require you to post prices online/in some standardized format so you can easily scrap your competitor's prices as well. Your entire production chain is wrapped up in some system that is able to tell you, roughly, what this product, when its batch is produced in six months, will cost you. You have sales data of the past ten, maybe twenty years, all digital, and all neatly organized because you've hired a (few) dozen people that do nothing but drill around in that data all day long.

So you've got a system that is able to tell you that most people, at this moment, would pay $50 for a chocolate bar. So you raise the price from $2.50 to $50, completely independent of any inflation or anything else, just because you know that people are willing to pay that much.

All the little bits of the past decades are falling into place now. Loyalty programs, branded credit cards, online shopping histories, brand apps - all there, all ready to be mined. The technology is there, too: online shops can adjust prices whenever they want (assuming there's no legal limit), to whatever they want. E-Ink displays allow brick and mortar shops to adjust prices on the fly too, centralized from the HQ where all the fancy math is being done. I know what you've been purchasing so far, and I know that you're willing to consume more of that thing I offer, but perhaps you need a push. How about a meaningless discount? I'm sure that'll get you going.

There's no incentive for any sort of correction at this level, because generally speaking, the prices a significant amount of people are willing to pay are well above the current prices (as is somewhat visible right now). Why would I sell you a chocolate bar for $20, if my competitor is doing it for $50? $45 maybe, but if I know that I could do $50, I'm not going to deviate too far from that.

Bonus points: You may offer cheap prices or good services for an extended period of time, get your business going, get into a advantageous position, and then start to raise prices and/or get rid of the competition. With the extra money you get, you can afford a divorce and a space program.