AI in Shopping: Google’s New AI Shopping Tools

Artificial intelligence is being used in the e-commerce and retail industries to transform them through purchasing recommendations, voice-enabled shopping assistants, personalized shopping experiences, robotic warehouse pickers, facial recognition payment methods, anti-counterfeit tools, and other means.

Online shopping giants like Google and Amazon are turning to AI to assist customers with smarter, faster, and easier browsing thanks to tools driven by AI and machine learning that give more personalized and attractive results, product information, and suggestions.

It has already become simpler and less dangerous to handle various places thanks to AI-powered mechanics and operations, and this trend of relying on AI is only going to grow in the upcoming years. Some astonishing statistics support the development of AI-powered shopping assistants and e-commerce platforms:

Opportunities for sales in commerce are aggressively expanding. Ecommerce generated $2.3 trillion in sales in 2017, and by 2022, it is projected to more than double to $5.5 trillion. Online sales now make up 10% of all retail sales in the United States, and they are expected to rise by 15% annually.

The data on e-commerce shopping patterns is highly illuminating: Online buyers have acknowledged that they make purchases while in bed 43% of the time, at work 23% of the time, and in the bathroom or the car 20% of the time.

As customers rely more and more on online shopping, which is predicted to account for 95% of all purchases by 2040, e-commerce is providing numerous entrepreneurs with new possibilities.

Google has further enhanced its shopping capabilities with AI and machine learning-powered tools that provide more personalized and visually appealing results, product information, and suggestions. The improvements mainly aim to give customers more visually appealing and engaging shopping experiences.

The New Google AI Shopping Tools

Google’s most recent shopping tools consist of a number of unique features.

For example, US users can utilize the Google audio search function by saying “shop” followed by the name of a specific product, such as “shop office chairs.” They will then be directed to a shoppable visual stream of products where they may also see the real inventory in stores close by. Currently only available on mobile, the feature will soon be made available on desktop as well.

When looking for clothing on Google, consumers can use the phrase “shop the look” to order an outfit they like. Google will respond by displaying photos of related fashions along with links to online stores where customers can purchase them.

Google will add a new category to search called “trending products” that will show off the most popular products that are currently hot.

After introducing 3D image-based home goods shopping in Google Search earlier this year, the internet company is now introducing 3D shoe shopping, which includes automated 360-degree rotation images. Google intends to expand the tool’s application in the future to cover more different products as machine learning technology develops. Given that consumers interact with 3D graphics over 50% more than with static images, it is very pertinent.

Likewise, Google is launching a new buying guide that gathers helpful data about a specific product category from several sources all across the web to help customers narrow their options. To assist customers in making the best decisions possible, the buying guide may, for example, provide details about the dimensions and materials of a certain product. As of right now, the feature is only available in the US.

Furthermore, users are informed of pricing changes. In the upcoming months, this feature will be made available in the US.

In addition, Google Search will soon provide customers with more customized shopping results based on their prior purchases and shopping preferences. This will be done using AI and machine learning capabilities. Controls will be provided to users so they can set their preferences or completely turn off the feature. Later this year, the update will be made accessible to US users.

Another noteworthy aspect is that the search will soon have new dynamic filters. At the top of a results page, users will have options to filter for a variety of criteria, such as styles, price ranges, and whether or not a product is offered at nearby stores. The new filters adjust in real-time based on user behavior. The filters are now available in the US, India, and Japan, and they will soon be available in other markets.

Moreover, new suggested products will show up in the Google app’s Discover section, expanding the range of personalized shopping tools. Users will see products recommended here based on their past purchasing behavior and the behavior of people who have purchased similar products. Users can use Google Lens to locate a store by simply tapping a picture.

The company’s Shopping Graph, an AI-based model that shows suggested products designed for specific customers, powers all of Google’s new shopping capabilities. Google claims that the Shopping Graph is more intelligent than ever; it is capable of understanding over 35 billion product listings, a 37% increase from the previous year.

These are the most recent large shopping changes that Google has released in the previous 12 months. For instance, the company launched multisearch in April, an immersive tool that lets users combine keyword-based search with image-based search to find the exact product.

Google vs. Amazon Shopping Tools

With its ongoing investments in commerce technology, Google hopes to better compete with Amazon, which, according to eMarketer statistics, will dominate over 40% of the US e-commerce market by 2022.

It comes as no surprise that Google is introducing new shopping services, especially because TikTok has been labeled the “new Google” for younger audiences. This holiday season will reveal how open consumers are to new virtual and visual features, regardless of where they shop.

According to Jennifer Shambroom, chief marketer at Clickatell, a chat-and-SMS-focused commerce company, the commerce landscape has evolved immensely over the past year. We’ve seen social platforms like Instagram and TikTok work to win over consumers through new, interactive shopping capabilities and effectively meet them where they are in their daily lives, says Shambroom.

The corporate world as a whole is changing directly before our eyes, and the market is quickly catching up with the new trends. How can Google remain an exception? Despite being one of the largest corporations in the world, it cannot remain unchanging. To cut costs and improve business process management, all major corporations today are trying to incorporate AI and ML technology into their business processes.

With its algorithms, Google functions as a search engine to determine which websites should be ranked. As of Internet Live Stats, 2022, Google processes over 99,000 searches every single second. This results in over 8.5 billion searches per day.