Mountain View — Google wants online shoppers to easily know what their clothes look like before they buy.
The Mountain View-based company Wednesday unveiled a new virtual try-on feature that uses generative AI, the technology underlying new chatbots and image-making tools, to show clothes for a wide range of body types.
The company says the feature will allow shoppers to see how products hang, fold, stick, stretch, wrinkle and shadow on a variety of models in different poses.
Google is also launching a feature that uses AI-powered visual matching algorithms to help users find similar clothing in different colors, patterns and styles from sellers across the web.
These efforts are part of Google’s larger effort to protect the search engine from threats posed by new AI-powered tools that continue to emerge following the viral success of ChatGPT. At last month’s Google I/O developer conference, the company spent more than 90 minutes presenting a long list of AI-related announcements, including expanding access to its existing chatbot Bard and introducing new AI features to Google Search. introduced.
According to Google, this virtual try-on option uses many pairs of images of more than 80 models standing front and side, ranging in size from XS to XL, with a variety of skin tones, body shapes and ethnic backgrounds. It is said that it was developed by AI-powered tools learn to match specific shirt shapes to their positions, producing realistic images of people from all angles.
The feature will initially work on women’s tops from brands such as Anthropology, Loft, H&M and Everlane. Google has announced that it will expand to men’s shirts in the future. Google also said the tool will become more accurate over time.
Google isn’t the only e-commerce company to incorporate generative AI into the shopping experience. Some companies, such as Shopify and Instacart, use this technology to help their customers make shopping decisions. Amazon is experimenting with using artificial intelligence to aggregate customer feedback about products on its site, potentially reducing the time shoppers spend perusing reviews before making a purchase. And eBay recently launched an AI tool that allows sellers to generate product listing descriptions.
