In its annual Google I/O livestream, Google has just announced a bunch of improvements it is bringing to the search platform (and others), aimed towards improving the experience of both merchants and customers when it comes to shopping online.
Google introduces the “Shopping Graph,” a newly developed comprehensive dataset, backed by artificial intelligence, to help shoppers find exactly what they are looking for, updated in real time and ensuring products are currently available.
The Shopping Graph is able to understand and tie together the billions of “products, sellers, brands, reviews and most importantly, the product information and inventory data received from brands and retailers directly.”
The Shopping Graph will span all of Google’s platforms, connecting and inspiring people with things they may be looking for (whether they be virtual or physical) from what Google claims are over 24 billion listings from merchants online. This means you should be able to find what you are searching for even more easily than before, with Google adding new interactive features for interconnectivity between platforms as well.
For example, Google Lens has been integrated into Google Photos to make searching for products online easier. Rather than screenshotting an item you are interested in and then forgetting about it, as soon as you snap that screenshot, Google Lens will analyze it, pick out objects within the image, and allow you to instantly search online for them (should you choose to do so).
Google also teased a new user experience on its YouTube platform, which should be making it simpler to shop for products featured by your favorite YouTube creators. Hopefully this will alleviate the repeated-to-death phrase “links in the description, guys” (links which are sometimes forgotten as well)! Google didn’t us give any more details, other than that the new features are “in pilot.”
We are also told to expect online shopping research and product comparison to get infinitely easier, with a new widget we’ll be seeing on our Google home page. We all know the hassle of trying to research the heck out of where a particular item is sold for the lowest price (such as the best new smartphone you may want to upgrade to).
With so many shops and online retailers to review, most of us end up opening a hundred tabs on our browser until we can barely keep track of what’s where.
Soon, every time you open a new tab, a widget across the center will display the carts across different sites where you’ve shopped the last few weeks. This should let you keep track of desired purchases or items to compare from different sellers much more easily. You can opt to be shown available discounts on your cart icons, as well as having integrated access to the loyalty programs of your favorite stores.
Once your carts are full, Google will be able to send you notifications when prices of any items drop—only if you opt in, of course. Google has also announced a new collaboration with Shopify to facilitate your shopping experience across all of Google’s platforms: from Google Search to Google Lens, Google Maps, Google Images, and YouTube.
We’ll keep you updated once we have more details on some of these changes!