Fast Five Shorts | How Momentous Is Google’s New AI Mode?
Takeaways:
Google is introducing a new AI enhanced shopping experience called AI Mode to improve online shopping.
The AI Mode integrates the Gemini Generative AI chatbot with the Google Shopping Graph, providing real-time product data.
Customers will soon be able to search for products using conversational language and receive tailored recommendations.
The agentic AI checkout will allow users to confirm purchases securely and receive notifications about price drops.
Shoppers can set preferences such as size, color, and budget, enhancing the personalization of their shopping experience.
Google's extensive data from various services may give it a competitive advantage in e-commerce over traditional retailers.
Thanks to Alvarez & Marsal Consumer & Retail Group, Simbe, Mirakl, Ocampo Capital, ClearDemand and Infios for making this episode possible. For the full episode, head here: https://youtu.be/Ujbv_kIGzUk
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Transcript
Google is rolling out a Gentic AI Checkout According to Chainstore Age, Google is introducing a new artificial intelligence enhanced shopping experience called AI Mode.
Speaker A:The tech giant's AI Mode shopping experience combines its Gemini Generative AI chatbot with Google Shopping Graph, a real time data set of products, inventory and merchants with more than 45 billion listings in stock inventory data from a range of retailers every hour.
Speaker A:More than 2 billion of those product listings are refreshed on Google.
Speaker A:2 billion with a B.
Speaker A:In the coming months, customers will be able to search for products using conversational language and see a right hand panel of images and product listings.
Speaker A:Once a customer selects a product, a new agentic AI checkout will help customers buy at a price that fits their budgets.
Speaker A:Shoppers will be able to tap track price on any product listing and set options such as size or color and the amount they want to spend and then receive price drop notifications when ready to buy.
Speaker A:The customer will then be able to confirm the purchase details and tap buy for me behind the scenes, Google will add the item to their cart on the retailer site and securely complete the checkout with Google Play.
Speaker A:This agentic checkout feature will be rolling out in the coming months to product listings in the US and there was a lot there intentionally because we wanted to make sure the fans knew how this was designed to work.
Speaker A:And lo and behold, this is also the A and M put you on the spot question.
Speaker A:Are you ready for it this week?
Speaker B:Oh yes.
Speaker B:If it's about Google Shopping, you know I'm ready for it.
Speaker A:I know I picked this one specifically for you.
Speaker A:I put this as headline number four specifically for you.
Speaker A:All right, here it is.
Speaker A:How much does this enhance the experience for those who currently use Google Shopping?
Speaker A:Or does this have the chance to disproportionately pull from those who currently go directly to retailer.com sites for B2C buying, the floor is yours.
Speaker B:Well listeners, I tried this last night and I will clarify the only the try it on mode was available to me.
Speaker B:The rest of the features it sounds like are coming coming soon to the rest of us who aren't in the beta program.
Speaker B:But the AI generated image I put.
Speaker A:This pretty damn good.
Speaker B:I put these up on LinkedIn last night.
Speaker B:The AI generated images are so good, like so good.
Speaker B:And I'm a huge skeptic about the the fit me models and all these things.
Speaker B:No, no no no.
Speaker B:But I think what A M where where a M's question is getting at and what I think is the most impressive thing here is is when When I'm as a shopper, I put into Gemini like, hey, I'm looking for a suit for Barcelona for next week that will be weather appropriate.
Speaker B:Okay.
Speaker B:That's how people are going to be searching.
Speaker B:They're not going to the dot coms anymore.
Speaker B:It's, it's give me some options.
Speaker B:And now if you think about where this could go eventually, just taking that picture that I've uploaded and showing me all of these items on me, on me as a model, not a model that looks like me, but on me and I get to look at those.
Speaker B:I mean, I was not planning on purchasing something.
Speaker B:Chris, there are three things in three carts right now from just that thing that I was like, oh, I mean you still have the issue potentially of arriving and it doesn't fit as the AI model for sure.
Speaker A:Yeah.
Speaker B:But you know what?
Speaker B:Those things are in my cart.
Speaker B:Those companies have my contact information.
Speaker B:They're pinging me and saying mango.com is like you left the suit in your cart.
Speaker B:Here's the picture of it on you once again.
Speaker A:Right.
Speaker B:And do you want to check out.
Speaker B:And I think the last thing that I'll add about where, where Google is really going to continue to stand out with this is when they start to add on these other features.
Speaker B:And Nicole Netland, one of our former co workers from Target Store, the Future, who's working on this project, she said in a, in a chat that we had a few weeks ago at Google in New York that the, the key thing here about where Google has a moat that some of these other players in the space are, do not have is they know what I'm looking at on YouTube shorts, they know what kind of content I'm looking at there.
Speaker B:They know my Gmail address, they know what activities are on my Google Calendar.
Speaker B:And so when you start thinking about how they can kind of do the push and pull with me as a consumer consumer here based on the inputs they're getting from all of those sources and Gemini and the quality of the, the content they can serve me up.
Speaker B:I think this is putting Google in an exceptional place or as a challenger to some of these other big companies that are coming up in this, in this space and especially as it applies to commerce.
Speaker B:So I, I'm a huge fan, Chris.
Speaker B:Give me, talk me down.
Speaker A:Talk you down?
Speaker B:Where, where?
Speaker B:Am I missing some key points about this rollout?
Speaker A:Well, yeah, no, I mean, I think you're bringing up some interesting points I hadn't thought of in preparation for this.
Speaker A:I mean, you're right.
Speaker A:I think you know, anyone that uses Google's calendar, email, even Google Chrome, that Google probably knows more about you than you know about yourself.
Speaker A:You know, which is something I always used to say about social media.
Speaker A:But, but Google probably knows even more when you put it in that context.
Speaker B:Yeah.
Speaker A:So that's really powerful in what you said.
Speaker A:The point about, the point about you've been a fit skeptic.
Speaker A:I kind of, I, I kind of gave you a Cheshire grin on the camera, off camera.
Speaker A:Cause I'm like, have you?
Speaker A:Yeah, I mean I feel like we've had lots of debates on this and, but the thing I would make that I think what, I think I agree with you because I saw the stuff you posted and it looked amazing.
Speaker A:My only question is like, is it really going to fit that well or is it just like super tailored to look good on you?
Speaker A:I have no idea.
Speaker A:And, but that's an important question that has to be uncovered and understood.
Speaker A:So you know, for me though, the longer term implications of this, like the agentic AI part of the conversation and Google start to take share from retailer.com or visits, you know, to retailer.com as a.
Speaker A:And M was asking.
Speaker A:I don't know, I think the jury's out.
Speaker A:I think it all, it all comes down to the UX and ultimately the ease of payment too, which we've talked about on past shows.
Speaker A:You know, for me the best analogy I can make to this is I think we're going to be in like a Betamax versus VHS battle here in a gentle checkout, you know, you know, similar to Betamax, the best tech or the best moats, quote unquote, might not be the ones who win out.
Speaker A:It could just be the, the, the whoever makes this experience, the one that's the easiest to buy from.
Speaker A:And Google, as much as it has these moats, history is not on its side when it comes to figuring out E commerce at all.
Speaker A:You know, it's always been a tough get for them and so will it be Amazon?
Speaker A:Is it going to be one of the upstarts?
Speaker A:I have no idea.
Speaker A:I can't wait to find out though.
Speaker A:And as you showed on LinkedIn very admirably yesterday, we've got a front row seat and it's going to be buckle your seatbelts because I can't wait to watch this.
Speaker B:Totally.
Speaker B:And I think one more thing I just add in closing, I think that Google shopping in the past was never set up to work this way.
Speaker B:Google is a tech company.
Speaker B:They were not a commerce focused company.
Speaker B:And I think that's where they're really, you can see, like just with this AI example.
Speaker B:Right.
Speaker B:Like, it's, I think, and to answer A&M's question, again, like, I, I think, I think any agentic search is taking away from going to the dot com.
Speaker B:So it doesn't matter.
Speaker B:Like, let's clarify there.
Speaker A:It will happen over time.
Speaker B:Yeah, it absolutely will happen over time.
Speaker B:So, so people like Google and what they put out here, being able to showcase multiple brands so that you as a consumer have the most choice like this.
Speaker B:Well, it's, it's going to be great.
Speaker B:I can't wait.
Speaker B:As a shopper, I'm thrilled.
Speaker B:So we'll see what, we'll see what happens next.
Speaker A:It's pretty mind blowing.
