Google announced new AI features to help people find products and “try on” apparel virtually this week, and Amazon announced a new feature that has “AI shopping experts” research products and read aloud product summaries and reviews.
Sellers are often leery when marketplaces do anything to change the way their products are displayed or described, since any misunderstanding on the part of buyers could lead to claims that the item was “not as described.” Amazon’s new audio product-summary feature, announced on Wednesday, raises the question, described by whom – by the seller, or by Amazon bots?
Amazon’s new tool pulls from the product catalog and customer reviews, but also from “information from across the web”; it then translates the content into short-form audio clips.
Here’s an excerpt of Amazon’s description of the feature:
“We’ve recently started testing new short-form audio product summaries on select product detail pages, with AI-powered shopping experts discussing key product features. These AI shopping experts have done the research for you, analyzing product details, customer reviews, and information from across the web, then bringing product details to life and allowing customers to simply hear the highlights. The feature makes product research fun and convenient—it’s like having helpful friends discuss potential purchases to make your shopping easier, even if you’re multitasking or on the go.
“Customers can listen to the short-form audio summaries on product detail pages by tapping the “Hear the highlights” button in the Amazon Shopping app. The initial test feature focuses on products that typically require consideration before purchase, giving helpful insights through detailed discussion, and helping Amazon customers save time while shopping.”
Google announced several AI features on Tuesday, including a “new shopping experience in AI Mode with inspiring visuals, smart guidance and reliable product data.” It also introduced a “try it on” feature and an “agentic checkout experience, so you can act quickly to make a purchase when the price is right for you.”
Vidhya Srinivasan took the stage at Google I/O developer’s conference on May 20 to introduce the features. Google posted the 2-hour keynote address in the following YouTube video – Srinivasan appears at 1:02:10 (one hour and 2 minutes after the start of the 2-hour video):
Srinivasan oversees Google’s Advertising (search, display, shopping, travel, video and measurement) and Commerce (consumer shopping, merchant shopping and payments) products. In her presentation, she showed how shoppers could use Google Search’s AI mode to conversationally tell it what they are looking for (in her example, a living room rug that can stand up to wear-and-tear from 4 children). She said the AI feature draws from Google visual images combined with Google Shopping Graph, which has over 50 billion product listings.
She then demonstrated the new Google try-it-on feature, and then the agentic buy-for-me feature.
Sellers don’t need to be proficient in AI, but having an understanding of how search engines and marketplaces are using AI features may be helpful in understanding how such changes could impact traffic and sales to their products.