• Through Google’s generative AI, shoppers are offered with snapshot details of products to fasten and simplify the shopping experience.
• It stores the product listings across the web for free to customers for easy purchase of products from sellers or merchants in a small scale business.
Image: COURTESY
Shopping can be a fun activity but sometimes it requires extensive research before making a purchase.
Equally, there are various factors to consider before purchasing an item and with advanced technology, this activity has been simplified.
Through Google’s generative AI, shoppers are offered snapshot details of products to fasten and simplify their shopping experience.
Built on Google’s Shopping Graph, the new generative AI experience also allows shoppers to get product descriptions that include relevant, up-to-date reviews, ratings, prices and product images.
During the Google I/O 2023 event, the tech giant noted that this is set to offer a seamless and informed decision-making process for users.
Google Shopping Graph, powered by a machine learning model, is a comprehensive dataset that contains global product listings.
It stores specific product and seller details like the pros and cons, sizes, colours, reviews and availability.
In this way, users can have real-time information from other shoppers when purchasing an item.
The Graph derives its information from Google Merchant Centre where brands and retailers post their content across the web.
It stores product listings across the web for free to customers for easy purchase of products from sellers or merchants in a small scale business.
“Shopping with the assistance of AI provides users with features that contain specifications of products or services they need to buy,” Google said.
It is worth noting that with the improved shopping experience, users still need to be protected and the tech company has laid numerous guidelines to achieve this.
Below are some of the ways Google keeps shoppers safe online.
Automation to help vet quickly and accurately
“Products and merchants go through in-depth safety reviews before they can list on Google,” the tech giant said.
Through Shopping Graph, businesses are quickly reviewed on legitimacy, if the products users see are accurate and whether their content follows Google’s policy.
“This automated vetting process has helped us more efficiently and accurately review a massive amount of products,” Google said.
This process ensures that community guidelines are adhered to and gives users the confidence to buy products online.
In January this year, Google stopped more than 100 million product offers from being shown and disapproved nearly 300,000 accounts for having quality issues and failing to follow policies.
Store badges and visual cues
Google has enabled shoppers to give badges to store that have earned it for having outstanding services, better ratings as well as high quality websites.
“We also show ratings for both an item and its various sellers, so you can learn about other shoppers’ experiences with those products and businesses. And since our product listings bring you right to merchant websites, you can do even more research about a store directly on their site,” Google said.
Automated and human review teams
Google monitor their website with assistance from the help centre to detect any malice or activities that do not adhere to their community policies.
“Our automated systems are always monitoring for violating activity, and our team of human reviewers is on standby to review issues that might need a more nuanced perspective,” Google said.
“We take different types of actions when we see odd behavior; from removing listings that seem suspicious or violate our policies, to banning a merchant from listing on Google.”
Google continues to express its commitment to ensuring that measures are in place to make sure that users can trust what and who they are buying from.