---
id: "contrarian-collaborate-with-bots"
type: "contrarian-insight"
source_timestamps: ["§ Lessons from Food and Travel Aggregators"]
tags: ["strategy", "partnerships", "contrarian-insight"]
related: ["claim-marriott-bot-collaboration", "framework-ai-agent-spectrum"]
challenges: "The conventional view that third-party scraping and aggregators are inherently parasitic and should be blocked to protect brand equity."
sources: ["geo"]
sourceVaultSlug: "hbr-seg-geo"
originDay: 3
articleStem: "hbr-nm-97-retailers-ai-shoppers"
sourceUrl: "https://hbr.org/2025/10/what-should-retailers-do-about-ai-shoppers"
sourceTitle: "What Should Retailers Do About AI Shoppers?"
---
# Collaborating with bots can beat isolating them

## Contrarian Insight — Collaborating with bots can be more profitable than isolating them

**Challenges:** The conventional view that third-party scraping and aggregators are inherently parasitic and should be blocked to protect brand equity.

Conventional wisdom says brands should fiercely protect inventory from third-party scrapers to avoid commoditization. The authors use the [[entity-marriott-d3]] / [[entity-expedia]] example (see [[claim-marriott-bot-collaboration]]) to argue the **contrarian view**: proactively collaborating with algorithmic aggregators (bots) **on your own terms** can yield significantly higher revenue growth than trying to isolate them. This reframes the middle-and-upper rungs of the [[framework-ai-agent-spectrum]] (passive open, partnership) as *offensive* moves, not concessions.

**Enrichment caveat:** the strength of the contrarian claim rests on the Marriott CAGRs, which are confounded by pandemic recovery. Treat the insight as **directionally sound** (collaboration can outperform isolation) but not as quantitatively proven. The subtler point survives: openness *with control retained* (checkout, data, exclusive services) beats both naive openness and reflexive blocking.