Google Upgrades Shopping Experience in Search Results

Google has recently updated its shopping experience on desktop, introducing a series of innovative features aimed at providing consumers with a more user-friendly, personalized, and convenient shopping experience.

The new AI-powered tools include:

AI-powered Virtual Try-On for Clothing: Now available nationwide for U.S. users, this feature allows shoppers to upload a full-body photo and see how different apparel items would look on their actual body. The AI adapts the clothing to the user's body shape and size, providing a realistic visualization. Users can save and share these try-on images to help make informed buying decisions.
Enhanced Price Tracking Alerts: Users can now set highly specific price alerts for products tailored by desired size, color, and target price. This means shoppers receive notifications only when deals precisely matching their preferences appear, eliminating irrelevant alerts and making deal tracking more efficient.
Upcoming AI-Powered Visual Style Inspiration (Launching Fall 2025): This feature will offer personalized outfit and room design ideas by analysing user queries through Google’s vision match technology using the vast Shopping Graph of over 50 billion items. This is intended to inspire users visually and help them explore complementary products seamlessly within the Google environment.
Visual Browsing Panels and Guided Checkout Assistance: Integrated into the shopping mode of Google Search, these features provide a more interactive browsing experience and streamline the path from discovering products to completing purchases. The guided checkout uses AI to assist users with their selections and transactions, all without leaving Google’s platform.

These innovations aim to enhance the shopping experience by making it more personalized, visual, and convenient. The virtual try-on reduces uncertainty when buying clothes online by showing realistic previews, while smarter price alerts save time and effort by notifying users only when desired deals occur. Visual style inspiration helps spark ideas and discovery, and guided checkout assistance simplifies the purchase process, creating a smoother end-to-end journey from search to payment.

The dynamic filters can be updated with options based on what a user is searching for at a particular moment. Google's improved shopping features arrive just as shoppers may already be on the hunt for deals on gifts. The updates provide a dual-screen style search, where users can read information on a specific product without having to leave the search result page.

The updates to Google's shopping experience on desktop also include new features that were rolled out in September, such as a 3D sneaker functionality, buying guides for specific product categories, and a "shop the look" tool with curated styles. The updates are currently available in the U.S. and were announced by Google last month.

According to a study released by Deloitte, overall spend is expected to be on par with 2021, but shoppers are feeling the impact of higher prices. Thirty-eight percent of consumers plan to shop earlier this year, and twenty-three percent of consumers surveyed by Deloitte said their holiday budgets will be spent by the end of October. Interestingly, higher-income shoppers plan to spend less this holiday season, while low-income consumers plan to spend more.

Lilian Rincon, senior director of product at Google, stated that shopping is about browsing, researching, and narrowing down options to get the right product at the right price. These updates reflect Google's commitment to making the shopping experience more efficient, engaging, and enjoyable for users.

References: 1. Google Blog: Introducing new shopping features to help you find the right product at the right price 2. The Verge: Google's new shopping experience is more like Pinterest than Google Search 3. TechCrunch: Google's new shopping features include visual style inspiration, AI-powered try-on tools 4. Engadget: Google's new shopping features include a virtual try-on tool, price alerts and more

The AI-powered 'Visual Style Inspiration' feature, launching in Fall 2025, will use Google's vision match technology to offer personalized outfit and room design ideas, aiming to inspire users visually and help them discover complementary products.
The enhanced 'Price Tracking Alerts' feature allows users to set highly specific alerts for products tailored by desired size, color, and target price, eliminating irrelevant alerts and making deal tracking more efficient.
With the new AI-powered 'Virtual Try-On for Clothing' feature, shoppers can upload a full-body photo and see how different apparel items would look on their actual body, providing a realistic visualization to reduce uncertainty when buying clothes online.