New Delhi: Google has unveiled a new tool called Product Studio at its Google Marketing Live event, aimed at empowering merchants to effortlessly create product imagery using generative AI. This innovative tool will be available within Merchant Center Next, Google’s platform designed for businesses to manage how their products are presented on the Google platform.
Product Studio offers merchants the opportunity to generate product imagery without incurring additional costs typically associated with organizing new photoshoots. This means that brands can create new visuals for their products, such as showcasing seasonal variations, without the need for elaborate and expensive production processes. For example, a skincare company could request an image of their product surrounded by peaches, set against a background of tropical plants, effectively capturing the essence of a seasonal theme.
Furthermore, Product Studio can also assist in eliminating distracting backgrounds from existing images. If a merchant has a product photo with a complex backdrop, they can easily remove it and replace it with a clean, plain white background. Additionally, the tool has the ability to enhance the quality of small or low-resolution images, eliminating the necessity to reshoot the product.
Initially, Product Studio will be accessible to merchants in the United States within the next few months. Furthermore, Google has partnered with Shopify, allowing merchants using the Google and YouTube apps on Shopify to take advantage of these features as well.
During a briefing with reporters, Matt Madrigal, the vice president and general manager of Merchant Shopping at Google, emphasized the significant role advanced technologies like AI have played in Google Shopping products and expressed how Product Studio brings these cutting-edge capabilities directly to small and medium-sized businesses.
In addition to Product Studio, Google has introduced improvements to simplify the process of listing products on Google within Merchant Center Next. Previously, merchants had to manually input their product details, including images, descriptions, and pricing. With the new updates, Google will automatically populate a merchant’s product feed by extracting relevant information from their website. Merchants still retain the ability to edit the information or opt out of this feature.
To enhance merchants’ understanding of their performance, Google has consolidated all insights reports into the Performance tab. This update provides merchants with a centralized location to review crucial data, such as their best-selling products, competitor visibility, and customer engagement with local businesses on Search and Maps.
Merchant Center Next also offers a comprehensive view of product inventory for merchants operating both online and through brick-and-mortar stores. This unified perspective simplifies the management of inventory across multiple channels. Additionally, Google will provide insights regarding the potential benefits of rectifying errors in product data, aiding merchants in prioritizing necessary updates.
Merchant Center Next has already been introduced to new users, and Google plans to gradually upgrade smaller businesses in the upcoming months, with a global rollout expected to be completed by 2024. Merchants will receive notifications when the new experience becomes available to them.
Overall, Google’s introduction of Product Studio and its updates to Merchant Center Next aims to empower merchants, particularly small and medium-sized businesses, by leveraging generative AI and streamlining the process of managing and optimizing their product listings on the Google platform.