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'They Are Trying to Maximize the Amount of Money They Can Get Any Given Consumer to Pay' Janine Jackson ([link removed])

Janine Jackson interviewed journalist Katya Schwenk about AI surveillance pricing for the October 24, 2025, episode ([link removed]) of CounterSpin. This is a lightly edited transcript.

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Lever: Big Data Is Already Jacking Up Your Airline Fares

Lever (8/5/25 ([link removed]) )

Janine Jackson: You go to buy a ticket for a flight; you think the price is the price, but, in fact, the airline is using lots of available information about you to present the highest price they think you will pay. Yes, airlines have always tweaked prices based on status or frequency of flying, but this is different. This is companies using information you didn't share with them, determining what they, openly among themselves, call your “pain point," the maximum you will spend before you say, “OK, I just won't see my mother this year.”

Some insist this is just the market at work, but what can we do if we decide it's actually an instance of using technology to do something because it can, without adequate consideration of whether it should?

Journalist Katya Schwenk has written for the Intercept, the Baffler, the American Prospect, among others. Her piece on this issue ([link removed]) , co-authored with Luke Goldstein, was for the Lever, online at LeverNews.com ([link removed]) . She joins us now by phone. Welcome back to CounterSpin, Katya Schwenk.

Katya Schwenk: Yeah, thanks so much for having me.
Daily Economy: ‘Surveillance Pricing’ Is Just Pricing

Daily Economy (9/26/25 ([link removed]) )

JJ: The current story on what is called “surveillance pricing” starts with airlines, but we understand that that's not the beginning and certainly not the end. But maybe some basic information on what this practice is, and how it's not quite the same, as one defender ([link removed]) had it, as a restaurant offering senior citizens a discount on Sundays. It's not quite that, yeah?

KS: No, no it's not, although the airlines, and other people who use these kinds of pricing tools, would like consumers to think that everyone's getting their own personalized discount. But, of course, we know that if there is no set rate or baseline set fare, there's not really a way to get a discount on that fare.

And that brings us to the world of surveillance pricing, which I've been looking into, where we're seeing more and more companies—and I think airlines are the best example of this—work with consultants and with technology firms that offer AI-driven data analytics to target and personalize prices on an ever-more granular level: so looking at your browsing patterns, your consumer spending history, maybe other kinds of personal data, we don't quite know, to tailor what price the airfare you might see, the price you might be seeing for other kinds of consumer goods, to you specifically.

And, as you said, the idea behind this pricing strategy, and why it's so popular among these companies, is because they are trying to maximize the amount of money they can get any given consumer to pay. And we don't honestly know quite how widespread it is. We're starting to sort of get the glimpse at this in the airline industry. But it is, I think, quite a concern.
Forbes: How Does Dynamic Pricing For Airlines Affect Your Travels?

Forbes (3/11/24 ([link removed]) )

JJ: You cite a Forbes study ([link removed]) that says, for example, if we're talking about how this pre-existed, just before a holiday weekend, when flights are filling up and people need to fly, airlines might use what used to be called, and is still called, “dynamic pricing” to raise ticket prices by five times what they might cost. So they're looking and saying, “You need to fly right now, and so we're going to charge you more for it.” And somehow that is presented as, like, building a better mousetrap, or capitalism at work, whereas for a lot of us, it feels like—something else. Something predatory.

KS: Yeah. And dynamic pricing goes actually back quite a long way—and, again, is something that began with the airlines that has spread across industries. The idea being that if there is some event, and suddenly this particular flight becomes very popular, the airlines will raise fares to adjust for that heightened demand, which is why airfare might be really expensive if you're flying to go see the Olympics, or some big event like that.

But you can really see the rise of dynamic pricing as it happens now among tech platforms like Uber and Lyft, who have what they literally call on their consumer-facing apps “surge pricing,” where these fares are fluctuating constantly according to demand. And what that's created is an environment where surveillance pricing is able to flourish, because people are really used to a situation where there is no base fare. You don't know what your Uber is going to cost until you open the app. And when you're in that kind of environment, it's much easier for companies to tailor prices to consumers based on their personal data.

JJ: So this is, lo and behold, a profit-maximizing pricing system, but somehow there are folks who still insist ([link removed]) that it's really just a fair system, and then some others that, if you look at it, they say ([link removed]) it's really pro-consumer.

One particular table-thumper ([link removed]) that I read said that any consumer concerns are just ignorant pearl-clutching, because "prices are a social language." And so, if the price for a product or a service is too high, well, consumers will just reject it. And that's the market at work.

And I'm trying to see a vision of someone saying, “Well, I'll just find another way to get to my sister's wedding. Ha ha, the consumer speaks! Now you must lower your prices.” That's just not the way that we see the market working. And yet that's kind of the narrative that we're being told to justify this practice.
Katya Schwenk

Katya Schwenk: "Consumers don't actually have very much choice in many of these circumstances. So it's not like they're able to choose a lower fare from a competitor, often."

KS: Even if you are a believer in the free market, the classical economics marketplace, as the best option for consumers, that's not really what's going on here. When you have dynamic pricing in the way it's being used now, as you said, consumers don't actually have very much choice in many of these circumstances. So it's not like they're able to choose a lower fare from a competitor, often. And then, at the same time, there's also an absence of information, where, again, because consumers are unable to see the dynamic pricing at work, they're not able to adjust their choices to adjust for that.

And then, furthermore, we've seen instances where tech platforms that advertise pricing services, such as the real estate–pricing platform RealPage, what it does is centralize pricing information across a particular industry. In this case, it's rentals. And what that does is it leads to price collusion ([link removed]) , where because you have the centralized tech platform setting personalized prices across an industry, it’s another way to set prices, basically, where you can see that RealPage and these pricing platforms in consolidated industries basically allow companies to collude and set prices much higher than they would in the traditional free market. So, yeah, I think much of the narrative around this is really mistaken.

JJ: The administration and profit-driven corporations benefit from a public ignorance, or just misunderstanding, on this. And we can understand that we're going to be deluged with PR that tells us that this kind of pricing is a benefit to us, that this personalized pricing, we hear them saying it, “this is actually going to get you a cheaper rate.” That just means, a fortiori, we need transparency about what's going on, along with a public interest pushback.

And we see it; a representative in Texas, Greg Casar, is calling ([link removed]) for a pushback on AI pricing, citing not just the price-gouging that we're talking about, with airlines and with rental cars, but also wage suppression. And I would refer folks to, we had a conversation with Hatim Rahman ([link removed]) about that angle on it.

But we're in a fight about whether this is a good, or something that should be questioned. And transparency would seem to be at the root of any conversation we're going to have about that.

KS: Absolutely. And I think especially when, under this current administration, where we have the consumer protection authorities or antitrust regulators that may have been well-placed to take this on are not doing their jobs, or have been fired and basically prevented from doing their jobs, we're going to need other avenues toward transparency. And I know some lawmakers we mentioned have been outspoken about this, but the reality is, it's kind of a Wild West out there, where I think many of these companies and airlines and everyone using these different pricing tools, they know that they're not going to see very much accountability. And that's pretty scary.
Newsweek: Outrage Grows as Delta to Price Tickets Based on What AI Thinks You’ll Pay

Newsweek (7/22/25 ([link removed]) )

JJ: In the absence of that kind of accountability, which of course we should continue to fight for, what do we as individuals do? I mean, I guess increased awareness. If some AI is pushing a rate on you, you should compare and contrast as much as you can. What can we do as consumers?

KS: Yeah, I think even in the limited information environment we have, it's good to remember that this is happening, and to always be looking out for it and keeping it in mind. But then I do think that public and consumer pressure is an important factor here. I mean, Delta, after announcing ([link removed]) a few months ago that it was going to be using this AI, or implementing the next stage of this AI dynamic pricing, or surveillance pricing software, it faced massive backlash from the public, enough that the airline said, “We're not going to implement this program fully. We're not going to use this pricing software.”

Does that mean Delta isn't using surveillance pricing? I mean, many of these airlines have been known to use these kinds of tools for years. So I don't know that that's true, but I think that, to the extent that consumers are able to use that kind of public scrutiny and public pressure to make sure companies are scared to influence these practices, I think that's still a good thing.

JJ: And then, finally, journalists, we would hope, would be kind of an arm of the public in demanding that transparency and accountability.
Lever: Loyalty’s Hidden Price Tag

Lever (10/21/25 ([link removed]) )

KS: Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's something that we at the Lever have been writing quite a lot abou ([link removed]) t is all of the different industries that use these various kinds of pricing tools. So something we're keeping watch on, and we hope that others will be as well.

JJ: I've seen good reporting. I've seen reporting from a consumer angle. I guess what I'm looking for is the concerted pressure on the industry and on the government to what they're going to do in response. It's not that journalists are ignoring that this is impacting consumers, it's just the next stage, where you talk about how do we change it, that I feel like maybe they're falling down.

KS: Yeah, I mean there's quite a lot happening right now, and we don't have a particularly responsive federal government right now, but even so, it's important not to let these stories fall by the wayside, and to continue asking questions about what is going to be done. And, yeah, that's certainly something I'm thinking about.

JJ: All right, we'll end it there for now. We've been speaking with Katya Schwenk. Her piece, “Airlines Are Using AI to Set Personalized Jacked Up Prices," which is co-authored with Luke Goldstein, is still online at LeverNews.com ([link removed]) . Katya Schwenk, thank you so much for joining us this week on CounterSpin.

KS: Yeah, thanks so much for having me, Janine.
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