Google announced that it will launch a series of new AI shopping features in the United States from now on, further integrating artificial intelligence into the online shopping experience, including allowing AI to automatically call local stores, query on behalf of users, and automatically place orders to purchase specified products.
Starting this Thursday, for the upcoming holiday shopping season, American users can experience a complete set of AI shopping capabilities covering product search, price comparison, price tracking and checkout. Some of these features were previewed in advance at the Google I/O conference in May this year.
First, Google will add "conversational shopping" to the search AI mode - users can describe their shopping needs in detail, such as "women's sweaters suitable for pants or dresses", and then use additional instructions such as "offer more gray styles" without having to constantly click on filters or repeatedly enter new keywords. AI will use Google's accumulated product catalogs of more than 50 billion to customize responses according to user needs: if multiple products need to be compared, a side-by-side comparison table will be automatically generated, while pan-suggestions will present a flow of product image cards. Users can click directly to enter the product details page, visit the retailer's website, view historical price changes and track future price fluctuations, all of which can be done in AI mode, and the search results will also include sponsored advertising recommendations. At present, these shopping functions have also been added to the Gemini application, and American users can experience it.
In addition, Google AI will also intervene in traditional manual shopping. The new "Let Google Call" agent AI function is online. Users can specify AI to call local stores to inquire about inventory, inquire about promotional discounts, etc. When an AI call comes, the merchant will proactively inform the merchant that it is an artificial intelligence identity. If the merchant does not want to accept the AI call, he or she can freely choose to reject it. The information collected by AI will be sent to users via SMS or email. "Smart dialing" will first be promoted in categories such as toys, health and beauty, and electronic products.
Finally, users can even let AI agents shop and place orders. After selecting the product and specifications (such as color, size) and setting the ideal purchase price, if the price of the product falls below this value, Google AI will immediately remind the user and ask whether to purchase, and then automatically complete the payment through Google Pay. At present, this function has been launched first in Wayfair, Chewy, Quince and some Shopify platform merchants.
Google said that this AI shopping function is designed to automate tedious processes while ensuring that users have decision-making power over core aspects such as price. However, the strong intervention of AI may profoundly change the existing shopping process - including offline shopping, selecting products through experts and reviews, and even obtaining advice from various Internet celebrities/opinion leaders.
The report pointed out that Google used AI to search for "winter dry skin moisturizer" in internal testing, and AI can quickly give product recommendations and detailed comparisons. The author stated that he conducted a similar product review search on TikTok a week ago. In the Google AI shopping ecosystem, users can realize the entire closed loop of selection, tracking and purchase. What’s more interesting is that AI sometimes captures expert evaluation content from platforms such as TikTok and Reddit, which means that all human recommendations may eventually be automatically integrated by Google. Although users will not completely give up getting opinions from Internet celebrities, AI shopping assistants, like portable buyers, will inevitably make social influencers and review websites face greater competition.