Am I missing this in the article? Do you mean the shoes he's holding? He explains it immediately.
>when i visited REI this weekend to find running shoes for my partner, i took a picture of the shoe and sent it to clawdbot to remind myself to buy them later in a different color not available in store. the todo item clawdbot created was exceptionally detailed—pulling out the brand, model, and size—and even adding the product listing URL it found on the REI website.