Google Cloud Announces New Gen AI Products to Revolutionize Retail Experience

Google Cloud has unveiled new AI products designed to enhance the retail experience for customers and streamline back-office operations. The products, announced at the National Retailer Association’s annual conference, aim to personalize online shopping experiences and improve efficiency. One such product is the Conversational Commerce Solution, which allows retailers to embed AI-powered agents on their websites and mobile apps. These agents engage in natural language conversations with shoppers and provide tailored product suggestions based on individual preferences. Another product, the Catalog and Content Enrichment toolset, utilizes AI models to automatically generate product descriptions, metadata, and categorization suggestions from product photos. Retailers can also generate new product images or use AI-generated photos based on product descriptions. Google has emphasized the use of human review in order to address concerns around misleading or untruthful information. Additionally, Google introduced a retail-specific Distributed Cloud Edge device, a managed self-contained hardware kit that reduces IT costs and allows retailers to run gen AI applications in stores. Despite the retail industry’s previous rocky experiences with AI implementation, recent polls suggest that a significant percentage of retail decision-makers are eager to adopt gen AI in various aspects of their businesses. However, it remains to be seen whether retailers will embrace gen AI on a large scale.