Latest news with #AIshopping
Arab News
3 days ago
- Business
- Arab News
AI personal shoppers hunt down bargain buys
NEW YORK: Internet giants are diving deeper into e-commerce with digital aides that know shoppers' likes, let them virtually try clothes on, hunt for deals and even place orders. The rise of virtual personal shoppers springs from generative artificial intelligence being put to work in 'agents' specializing in specific tasks and given autonomy to complete them independently. 'This is basically the next evolution of shopping experiences,' said CFRA Research analyst Angelo Zino. Google last week unveiled shopping features built into a new 'AI Mode.' It can take a person's own photo and meld it with that of a skirt, shirt or other piece of clothing spotted online, showing how it will look on them. The AI adjusts the clothing size to fit, accounting for how fabrics drape, according to Google head of advertising and commerce Vidhya Srinivasan. Shoppers can then set the price they would pay and leave the AI to relentlessly browse the Internet for a deal — alerting the shopper when it finds one, and asking if it should buy using Google's payment platform. 'They're taking on Amazon a little bit,' Techsponential analyst Avi Greengart said of Google. The tool is also a way to make money from AI by increasing online traffic and opportunities to show ads, Greengart added. The Silicon Valley tech titan did not respond to a query regarding whether it is sharing in revenue from shopping transactions. OpenAI added a shopping feature to ChatGPT earlier this year, enabling the chatbot to respond to requests with product suggestions, consumer reviews and links to merchant websites. Perplexity AI late last year began letting subscribers pay for online purchases without leaving its app. Amazon in April added a 'Buy for Me' mode to its Rufus digital assistant, allowing users to command it to make purchases at retailer websites off Amazon's platform. Walmart head of technology Hari Vasudev recently spoke about adding an AI agent to the retail behemoth's online shopping portal, while also working with partners to make sure their digital agents keep Walmart products in mind. Global payment networks Visa and Mastercard in April each said their technical systems were modernized to allow payment transactions by digital agents. 'As AI agents start to take over the bulk of product discovery and the decision-making process, retailers must consider how to optimize for this new layer of AI shoppers,' said Elize Watson of Clarkston Consulting. Retailers are likely to be left groping in the dark when it comes to what makes a product attractive to AI agents, according to Watson. Analyst Zino does not expect AI shoppers to cause an e-commerce industry upheaval, but he does see the technology benefitting Google and Meta. Not only do the Internet rivals have massive amounts of data about their users, but they are also among frontrunners in the AI race. 'They probably have more information on the consumer than anyone else out there,' Zino said of Google and Meta. Tech company access to data about users hits the hot-button issue of online privacy and who should control personal information. Google plans to refine consumer profiles based on what people search for and promises that shoppers will need to authorize access to additional information such as email or app use. Trusting a chatbot with one's buying decisions may spook some people, and while the technology might be in place the legal and ethical framework for it is not. 'The agent economy is here,' said PSE Consulting managing director Chris Jones. 'The next phase of e-commerce will depend on whether we can trust machines to buy on our behalf.'
Geek Wire
21-05-2025
- Business
- Geek Wire
Amazon's AI-generated ‘shopping experts' summarize product details in new audio feature
In-depth Amazon coverage from the tech giant's hometown, including e-commerce, AWS, Amazon Prime, Alexa, logistics, devices, and more. A 'Hear the highlights' button on some Amazon product pages initiates an AI-generated audio clip with details about the product. (Amazon Image) Amazon is adding another AI twist to its shopping app with an audio feature that provides highlights and insight about certain products. The generative AI-powered feature, which Amazon refers to as 'AI shopping experts,' analyzes product details, customer reviews and information from across the web to allow customers to simply hear key information. 'It's like having helpful friends discuss potential purchases to make your shopping easier, even if you're multitasking or on the go,' wrote Rajiv Mehta, vice president of Search and Conversational Shopping at Amazon, in a blog post about the release on Wednesday. In the Amazon shopping app, a 'Hear the highlights' button shows up on a product details page. Customers click the button to initiate the audio experience. The feature uses large language models to generate scripts, according to Amazon, translating content from Amazon and elsewhere on the web into short audio clips. The initiative is in line with other AI-powered shopping tools released by Amazon, including the shopping assistant Rufus; the product research tool Shopping Guides; the Interests tool that continuously monitors new products in Amazon's store; and others. Mehta said the new audio summaries are currently available on select products to a subset of U.S. customers, with plans to roll out the feature on more product detail pages and to more U.S. customers in the coming months.
CNET
20-05-2025
- CNET
This Is What Surprised Me Most About the Google I/O AI Shopping Feature
An AI fashion tool was not on my Google I/O bucket list. At Google's annual I/O developers conference, the company introduced a number of Gemini AI updates, many of which are coming to Search and, notably, to our online shopping experiences. The new AI shopping feature lets you virtually "try on" different articles of clothing by using a photo of your body and imagining what it may look like on you. Google built a custom image generation model to power its new feature. It's a simple idea: Google's AI takes your input image of your body and the input image of the garment, and the AI combines them. The actual process behind it is more complicated, surely. But in the live demo, it seemed to work flawlessly. The virtual try on feature is available today in the US, with more visual shopping and AI agentic updates coming soon. I was very intrigued when I saw the live demo. I shop online for nearly everything I need, and I have been fooled many times by mis-imagining how clothing I see on models would look on me. But I'm an AI reporter, and I spend a lot of time worrying about the privacy implications of image and video tools, so I was skeptical, too. Read more: Everything Announced at Google I/O 2025 I reached out to Google after the keynote to ask about the privacy policies around this new feature. A Google spokesperson said: "Your uploaded photo is never used beyond trying things on virtually, nor is your photo used for training purposes. It is not shared with other Google products, services or third parties, and you can delete or replace it at any time." I was jaw-droppingly, pleasantly surprised by this. In the age of AI, tech companies are typically so data-hungry that a source of data like this seemed like a no-brainer for Google to use. Google spent a decent chunk of time during I/O showing off its new AI image and video tools, and human-generated photos like these would be useful for future model improvements. Tech and fashion companies have been trying to work at these problem for years -- my CNET colleague Katie Collins wrote about one dress-sizing app all the way back in 2012, and Amazon's integrated AI for its fashion sales in recent years, too. This fashion model, as Vidhya Srinivasan, Google's vice president and general manager of ads and commerce, called it during the keynote, has "a deep understanding of the human body." We'll have to test it out to see if it really works for all body types and sizes. AI image generators, especially early ones from Google, aren't always great when it comes to diversity. But I'm willing to give Google a chance since it won't use my pictures to automatically train its AI models. As much as I want to believe Google has given us a 2025 version of Cher's closet from Clueless, I'm still a little skeptical. There's no guarantee that the AI version of yourself Google generates will actually reflect how the clothing looks on you in real life. But maybe this is a potentially good use of AI, instead of filling the internet with slop.
CNET
20-05-2025
- Business
- CNET
Google's New AI Mode Will Let You Try on Clothes While You Shop Online
Google wants its AI tools to be your personal shopper. And maybe it'll tell you if that shirt really does look good on you or if it actually looks ridiculous. The company detailed its new AI Mode for shopping at its annual I/O developers conference Tuesday. That includes an improved conversational shopping experience, a checkout feature that allows you to buy when prices are best and the ability to upload a picture of yourself to "try on" clothes you find online. Read more: Google I/O Live Blog These new features come less than a month after OpenAI introduced shopping features in ChatGPT Search, a move that appeared to show OpenAI trying to compete more directly with Google's search and shopping features. The "try on" feature is available starting immediately in Search Labs in the US. It builds on existing "try on" technology, but instead of using a mock-up body type, you can upload a picture of yourself and see what the clothes would look like on you. The function works with shirts, pants, skirts and dresses. During a live demo, Vidhya Srinivasan, Google's vice president and general manager for ads and commerce, said the company built a custom image generation model specifically for fashion. "To create a try on experience that works at scale, we need a deep understanding of the human body and how clothing works on it," she said. The AI Mode shopping experience, expected to launch in the coming months, is designed to be more conversational. You'll be able to chat with the AI tool to get more inspiration and find the right product from a wide variety of retailers. Google said its Shopping Graph -- its database of products and retailers online -- now has 50 billion product listings, with more than 2 billion being updated every hour. AI Mode will be able to offer you personalized responses to your queries and then allow you to narrow them down based on your more specific requests. A new right-hand panel in the Shopping Graph will update as you narrow your request. A new checkout feature, debuting in the coming months, will let you track the price or allow you to look for a specific product at a certain price. You can get notifications for when prices drop and confirm when you're ready to actually buy the product. Google's AI agent will complete the checkout on your behalf through Google Pay. Google's shopping features will also be able to, for example, track down event tickets across different sites to find the best deal, without you having to search dozens of times for the right site.
CNET
20-05-2025
- Business
- CNET
Google Will Let You Try on Clothes With AI While You Shop
Google wants its AI tools to be your personal shopper. And maybe it'll tell you if that shirt really does look good on you or if it actually looks ridiculous. The company detailed its new AI Mode for shopping at its annual I/O developers conference Tuesday. That includes an improved conversational shopping experience, a checkout feature that allows you to buy when prices are best and the ability to upload a picture of yourself to "try on" clothes you find online. These new features come less than a month after OpenAI introduced shopping features in ChatGPT Search, a move that appeared to show OpenAI trying to compete more directly with Google's search and shopping features. The "try on" feature is available starting immediately in Search Labs in the US. It builds on existing "try on" technology, but instead of using a mock-up body type, you can upload a picture of yourself and see what the clothes would look like on you. The function works with shirts, pants, skirts and dresses. The AI Mode shopping experience, expected to launch in the coming months, is designed to be more conversational. You'll be able to chat with the AI tool to get more inspiration and find the right product from a wide variety of retailers. Google said its Shopping Graph -- its database of products and retailers online -- now has 50 billion product listings, with more than 2 billion being updated every hour. AI Mode will be able to offer you personalized responses to your queries and then allow you to narrow them down based on your more specific requests. A new right-hand panel in the Shopping Graph will update as you narrow your request. A new checkout feature, debuting in the coming months, will let you track the price or allow you to look for a specific product at a certain price. You can get notifications for when prices drop and confirm when you're ready to actually buy the product. Google's AI agent will complete the checkout on your behalf through Google Pay. Google's shopping features will also be able to, for example, track down event tickets across different sites to find the best deal, without you having to search dozens of times for the right site.
