February 14, 2026
AMP flashbacks, agent smackdowns
Show HN: Rover – Embeddable web agent
Amazon-style AI in one tag — or Chrome’s Trojan horse
TLDR: Rover pitches a one-tag site agent that clicks through checkouts, pushing back on Google’s browser-first WebMCP. The thread split: boosters celebrate “no RAG” setup and keeping control, while skeptics call the launch LLM-flavored and fragile—important because small sites want Amazon-like conversions without surrendering their users.
Hacker News lit up as Rover promised an “Amazon-grade” assistant you drop in with a single <script> tag. The pitch: be like Amazon’s Rufus—the shopping bot that reportedly drove $12B—without spending a fortune or exposing your site to Google’s WebMCP, which some called a Trojan horse. Fans cheered the “own your agent” angle, warning that WebMCP sounds like AMP all over again: you do the work, Chrome gets the relationship. One supporter summed it up: no RAG pipelines (RAG is a technique to fetch your data for a chatbot), just an agent that reads the page itself via the DOM (the page’s structure) and clicks buttons, fills forms, and guides checkouts.
Then the backlash hit. A top comment roasted the launch as LLM-written everything—from code to blog—giving LinkedIn pitch vibes. Skeptics joked “one tag to rule them all” until the site layout changes, and asked how Rover avoids the usual bot blunders: bad recommendations, broken flows, hallucinations. Memes flew: “AMP PTSD,” “Chrome as your checkout boss,” and “Skynet, now with a shopping cart.”
Behind the drama is money: Rufus-like agents boost conversions. The fight isn’t agent vs agent—it’s who owns the interface to your users: your site or the browser.
Key Points
- •The article cites Amazon’s Rufus achieving 250M active users, 60% higher purchase likelihood among engaged users, and 3.5x conversion on Black Friday 2024.
- •It claims Rufus will drive $12B in incremental sales in 2025 and estimates $285M in 2024 operating costs before profitability.
- •Market projections include AI shopping assistants reaching $28.54B by 2033 and conversational commerce at $8.8B with 14.8% CAGR.
- •DIY AI agents are described as costly and complex (RAG, vector DBs, custom LLMs, evaluation), estimated at $500K–$2M+ per year and 12–18 months to launch.
- •Rover is introduced as a DOM-native, embeddable agent deployed via one script tag, capable of completing flows, onboarding, demos, and complex workflows.