Google is giving its Shopping platform a major overhaul with the help of AI. The company wrote in a blog post:
“We’re introducing a transformed Google Shopping — rebuilt from the ground up with AI. We’ve paired the 45 billion product listings in Google’s Shopping Graph with Gemini models to transform the online shopping experience with a new, personalized shopping home, which is rolling out in the U.S. over the coming weeks.”
Here's what's new:
1) AI generated shopping assistance
Google's AI shopping experience aims to simplify your search with friendly guidance. They offered the following example:
- A search for “Men's winter jacket for Seattle” will provide an AI brief highlighting the most important things you should know before buying a new jacket for this climate.
- It'll then show product recommendations alongside an explanation of why those items are a fit for your needs, with links to the articles it pulled the info from.
- Google will also break down the results into categories to help you navigate more easily, with dynamic filters that help you zero in on exactly what you're looking for.
- The new Shopping interface incorporates Google's virtual try-on feature and other AI & AR shopping tools.
2) Personalized shopping feeds
Google is now offering users a personalized shopping feed to help them discover new products they might be interested in based on their preferences and previous search histories. The feed is also designed to help consumers stay organized and pick up where they left off as they research purchases over several days or weeks.
The new feed is comparable to TikTok's “For You” feed and showcases recently viewed products at the top, making it easy to resume shopping.
Place your bets: How fast will this new feed become polluted with ads?
3) Deal finding tools
The new interface includes deal finding tools such as price comparisons, price insights and price tracking, as well as a new dedicated and personalized deals page.
Google noted that the new AI generated briefs are experimental, which means they may not always get it right, and they encourage users to provide feedback through the tool.
In other Google news this week… the company added two new verification methods to its Google Merchant Center. Merchants can now verify their accounts via their business e-mail or by connecting their e-commerce platform. The old ways involved adding HTML tags or connecting Google Tag manager, which were a bit confusing for some merchants.