What you need to know
- Amazon announced a few "visual search" upgrades headed to its app, and the main event involves AI-generated images based on what the user types.
- This feature will rely on your provided color, texture, and pattern descriptions, but every word added changes what the AI "creates."
- Amazon has rolled out AI features before, such as "help me decide," which leverages its AI to find real "Top Pick" or budget-friendly products.
Amazon is rolling out a few search updates in its shopping app, and the main highlight is questionable.
This week, Amazon announced a series of "visual search" features headed to its app, and what's got us furrowing our brows is its use of AI. Amazon states that it will use AI-generated images to help users find items they're unfamiliar with. Its official statement reads, "Now, as customers search for products using descriptive language—like color, texture, or pattern—AI-generated images instantly take shape in the suggestions below the search bar."
What's more, it says that, as users type their description, the images will "shift and refine" with each added word. This is where the visual aspect of these updates comes into play, as users might've seen an item before but never had a chance to find its true name. Your descriptions will matter, but it affects the AI's interpretation of what you're talking about, not necessarily the product itself.
There are certain areas where AI is useful, and areas where it's not or doesn't make sense. Personally, this feature belongs in the latter. Where I think AI is useful if with Amazon's "shop by style." It lumps in products that it thinks you're talking about and would purchase. But seeing fake items while I'm trying to search for something that exists? No thank you.
Another AI-generated feature that Amazon's rolling out is "Shop by style." This is intended to be AI-curated collages of products after you've searched for something broad like "women's silk shirt," as Amazon states. Its AI will take that and compile different styles of silk shirts into categories. Shoppers can find shirts that fit more of a business theme or a party theme and more.
Amazon Lens Live comes into play, allowing shoppers to use their cameras to ask about products and find them in the app. It's awfully similar to how Gemini Live works today. Elsewhere, the company is rolling out "circle to search." Similar to Google's version, users curious about a product in an image can highlight (or circle) it for Amazon Lens' AI to find it for them.
Amazon's AI has been helpful before
Authenticity is the issue with Amazon's AI-generated product images. If the AI was thinking as you were typing, like its Visual Suggestions it's also rolling out, then fine. That would work since the AI is comprehending before showing you what's real. But to have an AI "create" photos of products that don't exist (since it's using your description), doesn't make sense.
Amazon has rolled out AI-fueled features in the past for its shopping experience, but never quite like what's highlighted today. Late last year, the company introduced "Help me decide." This feature was designed to leverage a user's search history and product preferences to produce "Top Pick," "Budget Pick," and "Upgrade Pick." These categories are pretty straightforward. Some are at the top of the industry (likely pricey), while others are more affordable or something to step up what you already have.
The main difference here is that Amazon's AI isn't making a product on the fly based on what you're saying. It's displaying real products from companies that you can truly purchase and wait for at home.
