IntentPay

An AI shopping agent that understands your needs, validates product requirements, and uses an Intent Contract to keep purchases aligned with your intent through PayPal checkout.

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IntentPay — From Intention to Checkout

Inspiration

Online shopping gives us countless choices, but finding the right product is not always easy. Filters help narrow the options, yet buyers still need to compare specifications, understand trade-offs, and determine whether a product truly satisfies their requirements.

We asked ourselves: What if AI could do more than recommend products? What if it could help people make informed purchasing decisions while keeping them in control of the final transaction?

That question inspired IntentPay.

What It Does

IntentPay is an AI-powered shopping assistant that transforms natural-language requests into a guided purchasing experience.

Users describe what they need, specify their budget and requirements, and receive product recommendations with explanations of relevant trade-offs.

Its core differentiator is the Intent Contract: a structured record of the buyer's requirements, selected product, relevant pricing information, validation results, and purchase approval.

Before checkout, IntentPay validates mandatory product constraints using application logic rather than relying solely on an AI-generated recommendation. Missing or uncertain product information is flagged instead of being presented as verified fact.

If material purchase details change, the previous approval is invalidated and the buyer must review the updated purchase.

Once the buyer approves, IntentPay integrates PayPal sandbox checkout to demonstrate the journey from AI-assisted product discovery to payment.

What Makes IntentPay Different?

Traditional filters help users find products matching selected attributes. IntentPay aims to connect the entire decision-making process.

  • Natural-language intent: Understand what users need without requiring them to configure every filter manually.
  • Constraint-aware recommendations: Check mandatory requirements separately from subjective preferences.
  • Transparent decisions: Explain product trade-offs and flag missing or uncertain information.
  • Intent Contract: Preserve a structured record of what the buyer requested and approved.
  • Buyer-controlled checkout: Require explicit approval and reapproval when material purchase details change.
  • PayPal integration: Connect the purchasing workflow to PayPal sandbox payments.

Our goal is simple: help users make better-informed purchases without losing control of what they agree to buy.

How We Built It

IntentPay combines an AI-assisted decision workflow with deterministic application logic and payment integration.

The AI component interprets natural-language requests and helps structure requirements, compare products, and explain recommendations.

The application logic validates mandatory constraints and manages purchase states and approval requirements. Payment operations are handled through the backend, with the intention of verifying transaction results rather than trusting a client-side success message.

PayPal sandbox provides the payment environment for demonstrating the checkout experience without processing real payments.

Challenges We Faced

One of the central challenges was deciding how much responsibility to give the AI.

AI can interpret ambiguous requests and explain complex trade-offs, but it should not be trusted as the sole authority for product eligibility, transaction amounts, or payment authorization.

We addressed this design challenge by separating AI-assisted reasoning from deterministic validation and payment controls.

Another challenge was connecting product discovery, purchase validation, user approval, and checkout into one coherent workflow. Each stage needs to preserve the relevant information from the previous stage so that the buyer remains informed throughout the process.

What We Learned

Building IntentPay reinforced an important lesson: adding AI to an existing workflow is not enough. A useful AI product must combine intelligent assistance with clear boundaries, reliable application logic, and meaningful user control.

We also learned to treat uncertainty as something the product should communicate openly. When information cannot be verified, the system should say so rather than invent confidence.

What's Next?

We envision expanding IntentPay with broader product discovery, stronger product-data verification, more personalized decision support, and a more comprehensive purchase history.

Our long-term vision is to make AI-assisted commerce more transparent, reliable, and centered on the buyer's intent.

IntentPay — Your intent. Your decision. Your payment.

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