I Thought I was Buying an AC
Or, why are you shoving the AI snake oil down my throat?
The wafting pulse of scorching summer is in the air.
Here, in Hyderabad, things aren’t looking all too well. What with the Earth skirting the Sun’s porch a little closer than comfortable, the pulse of the city, and very clearly of the whole of India, has been quickened by heatwaves, heatstrokes, and heated tempers from being unable to cool one’s body during commute.
And that’s why I am writing all this. In my incredibly busy schedule of sleeping during the weekends, I have to opine on a rather odd thing that happened this Saturday (the 18th of April, 2026, to be precise) that didn’t sit well with me.
But first, a little backstory to set the stage.
Back when my wife, our daughter, and I moved to Hyderabad in the middle of December, the climate was cool, if not cold. Very suitable to spend time outdoors and do everything that a bipedal would want to do.
And because we were tight on a budget, what with yours truly spending time to search for jobs in the crisis created ever since Sam Altman released the ChatGPT Kraken into the wild, we went for a reasonably-priced option when renting an apartment.
It only came with one AC in a bedroom, among the two.
But the catch seemed reasonable. We had our old cooler brought in through packers and movers, and hoped it would suffice for our parents, who’d come in to help us raise our daughter.
Time, then, flew. I found a job that I thought would never come my way. The seasons forgot Spring as if it were an illegitimate child. And Summer was at our door like an uninvited guest.
Only after a month and a half had become yesterday did the swell of Hyderabadi summers become so unbearable that our cooler started to fail. My parents, staying with us, found sleeping an exhaustive process with a small window of relatively cool mornings bringing some reprieve.
Since I was back on my feet, we decided to buy an AC for their room as well. And so begins the anecdote.
Before we went to the retailers, my wife and I had done extensive research on the brands we wanted to stick with. But the reality was not having any of it. The moment I, with my parents and my daughter, stepped into these shops, we realised we were a month too late. There was a queue to deliver and service people. A week-long queue.
But we needed an AC now. Or, at least, over the weekend. That meant compromises on our part.
And if there’s one thing a salesperson loves when peddling goods, it’s the look of desperation wrought on their customer’s face.
After having ping-ponged myself across two stores and yielding frustration, sweat, and a backache (born from keeping my daughter from toppling the whole store over), this one guy, ever so dreamily, stepped in front of me in the shop we returned to, and smiled the smile I was all too wary about.
“Sir!” worded his lips in a very salesperson-y way.
“If you need an AC delivered tomorrow,” he continued without breaking sweat, “we have a model from this brand ready to ship the moment you pay for it.”
Okay, a small interjection. This brand is not going to cut it. I need to make it as concrete as the pavements in the Financial District, which don’t allow rainwater to permeate through and recharge the groundwater reservoirs.
Let’s settle with Bayer, shall we?
Where were we? Ah, yes!
“If you need an AC delivered tomorrow,” he continued after my adjustment to censor the brand he was about to mention, “we have a model from Bayer ready to ship the moment you pay for it.”
I wasn’t impressed, mostly because Bayer was not even in the list my wife and I finalised. Furthermore, my experience with a completely different category of Bayer product had left me reeling from their brand.
Desperation, however, makes you sweat and bends you over. That and the summer heat, of course.
“O-kay?” I went tentatively. “What are the features of the model you’re talking of? And what is its BEE star label?”
“It’s a 4-star model, sir. Best-in-class features and just a smidge costlier than 3-star.”
Another interjection, and I do hope that you, the reader, will forgive me for this. You see, we initially planned to get a 3-star BEE-rating model (rated for electricity consumption; higher stars spell better savings) with 1.5 tonnes of cooling capacity, no matter which brand we went with. Even though I had a job now, I only had a month’s salary. We had expenses to meet and ends to push. That was a compromise we were ready to make. If not a 5-Star-rated model, then at least 4- or 3-Star ones would do.
Also, do note the marketing jargon to throw you off your game: best-in-class. Sounds like the topper of third or fourth grade in primary school.
“What features are those, again?” I pushed him, my brows knitting closer.
“Comes with all the AI features of the Japanese brand you asked for, and the Korean brand sitting behind me on the shelf. Even puts the Indian brands over there, in the second and third columns, to shame. You won’t find these AI features anywhere else.”
There it was. AI. But with no options on the radar for the foreseeable week, I had to know more.
“Can you be more specific, please?”
“Sir, this Bayer model is the only AC that has auto-clean functions for indoor and outdoor units. You won’t find any brand offering this service.”
“Okay, but what about the cooling? The capacity it offers?”
“It’s got 4200W, which can be expanded to 5600W” (Forgive me, but these numbers might not be precise. Consider them ballpark.)
“But doesn’t the Korean brand AC behind you offer more capacity?”
“That’s the maximum. Bayer’s model can expand it.”
“That expansion is still behind the claims and ratings of the Korean brand model.”
“But sir, it comes with AI features.”
I wasn’t having any of it. I had walked down this path before. In 2024, my wife and I took a stroll to the electronic retailers in Hyderabad to get ourselves a front-load washing machine, and found the same script run against us by another salesman. Back then, the offering on the table was a washing machine with AI. For what purpose? To do the same things that sensors have been doing for ages in existing models.
But brands do marketing with as much gusto as Evangelical priests. If there’s a newly minted term on the block that’s all the rage, they’ll make it theirs.
“Okay,” I continued, “but its cooling isn’t going to be the same as the Japanese brands, is it?”
“Sir, it has better output than Japanese models.”
“What? Better than the Japanese brand that also builds fan-favourite 4-seater rally cars?” (Wink wink).
“Even better than them!”
“What are you even talking about?”
“Sir, the Japanese brand you talk about, Bayer has a partnership with them.”
“It all sounds marketing to me.”
“Wait, I’ll show you.”
He then opens his smartphone and walks me through the legitimacy claims on Bayer’s AC page. You know, with numbers counting upwards of hundreds when you scroll down to impress you with another flashy marketing technique?
“I’m sorry,” I resumed, “but I am not convinced. Do you really not have any other brand in stock?”
“Sir, Bayer is the best.”
“That is a tall claim.”
At this point, I suggest to him that I’m going to talk with my wife. I pull aside and discuss all this with her, reflecting the tug-of-war in my head.
It was then that the salesman slid back onto the stage. His mobile aloft, he exclaimed, “Sir, look at this!” and typed “Best AC in India 2026” into the Google search bar.
I kid you not, I did not have “Google the SEO-rigged search results” on my bingo card. But what he used to further his motives could never have been on said bingo card. Because instead of relying on a website that you’d expect (and expect is doing the heavy lifting here) to be unbiased, the guy showed me the AI results for his search, as if bragging about his own creation under the sun.
“Wha-. That is irrelevant!” I spat. “I am not going to consider the AI search results.”
He looked at me, bewildered, “Sir, ChatGPT also says the same.”
“ChatGPT is not a reviewer. Nor is it as dependable for research.”
He smiled at me and said, “Then which website do you want to look at?”
I was at my wits’ end. To charm the customer is one thing, but to use AI’s biased, unreliable output? It was like people asking Grok on X for confirming events with their half-witted “@Grok is this true?” chains. Then again, everyone on the planet seems to have forgotten how the world ran before the AI pipe-bomb exploded into our consciousness.
We, of course, did not go with Bayer. Instead, a new model had arrived in the shop just then, from a brand that sounds similar to the first and middle initials of P. G. Wodehouse. (Wink!)
The sales guy was crestfallen. But then someone else was buying Acs (hot summers, what can one do?) and the spark in his eyes returned. The last I saw of him, his thumb was hovering over the Google search bar.
