Consider three decisions made across three different industries in the past two years.

1. In 2024, a federal class action named six major hotel chains, Hilton, Hyatt, Marriott, Omni, Wyndham, and Four Seasons, alleging that their shared AI pricing platform had produced coordinated room rates across competing properties. The hotels had never communicated. The DOJ and FTC called it price coordination.
2. A regional grocery chain replaced its human promotions planners with an AI system trained on the same public market signals every competitor uses. Within two quarters its promotional calendar had converged with the market leader’s. Shoppers could no longer articulate why they preferred one chain over the other.
3. A national landlord adopted an AI rent optimization platform used by thousands of competing property managers. It raised rents in step with rivals it had never spoken to. The U.S. Department of Justice named it in a 2024 antitrust action.

Full report : Enterprises risk falling into a “Agentic Convergence Trap”: independent systems arrive at identical decisions, eroding differentiation.