Google brings AI and more to the Play Store

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Google brings its AI technology to the Play Store. At this week’s developer event, Google I/O, the company announced several new ways for developers to use his AI to build and optimize his Android apps for the Play Store, as well as automation. announced a number of other tools to grow your app’s audience through e.g. Translations and other promotional activities.

The AI ​​update demonstrates another way Google aims to bring AI technology to all of its products, from search to productivity apps to coding tools and more. It’s also laid the groundwork for how AI can be used in the face of app publishing and promotion, which makes me wonder if Apple will introduce similar tools at his developer conference WWDC in June. Many people think so.

AI updates

One of the new AI features for app developers is a Generative AI tool that uses Google’s PaLM 2 model to help developers create new Play Store listings. Initially available in English as an experimental feature, the AI ​​helper will generate a draft copy after the developer enters a few prompts, Google says. With this tool, you can generate lists and uniquely categorized app descriptions for different types of users, which developers can edit, discard, or use. For example, you can ask for a description of your app based on your app’s primary audience or the theme of your app.

On the plus side, features like this help developers craft descriptions when it’s hard to describe their app’s feature set in an engaging way. However, it can also lead to more app spam as it simplifies some of the manual work of building an app list.

Generative AI is also used to assist users. Another AI feature called “User Review Summaries” synthesizes together user comments about a developer’s app from comments left in Play Store reviews. The tool will initially be available in English as well, allowing users to quickly see what people are saying about the app they are considering. Google says other languages ​​will be supported later this year.

Additionally, developers will have access to AI-powered machine translation tools to translate their apps and Play Store listings into another language in minutes. Google says 10 languages ​​from Google Translate will be available on the Play Console at launch, allowing users to translate apps and app store listings in minutes.

The new AI Listings Generator is available to developers starting today.

Overall, this use of AI clearly fits into the overall theme of AI at Google I/O, with the company focusing on where specific areas can be found in existing services to incorporate AI models. is guessing.

Play store updates

AI-powered features may get the most attention, but Google is also rolling out a series of updates to the Play Store and other developer tools focused on helping developers grow their app businesses. doing.

First, it builds on features introduced last year, allowing developers to create at least 50 custom store listings by country and pre-registration status. Now you can even customize lists to target your app’s inactive users and bring them back to give your app another chance. Going forward, the developer will be able to use his Google Ads App campaigns to serve these custom his listings to his AdMob and YouTube users, segmenting users directly into Google Play. To support this process, customize the base list and add store listing groups created by overriding certain elements.

The company also touched on new subscription options, including the recently launched multiple pricing per billing period. This allows developers to offer different auto-renewing and prepaid plan prices, such as giving regular discounts to “VIP” users. He also mentioned the User Choice Billing Pilot program, which allows the developer to offer third-party billing parallel to his Google Play Billing system within the app, at a small discount. Spotify and Bumble are early adopters.

promotional content

Taking inspiration from Apple’s App Store’s in-app events, Google Play previously introduced promotional content that allowed app developers to promote important events within their apps, such as new content and exciting offers. About 25,000 apps and games already have access to promotional content, with more titles expected to roll out this year, the company said.

The Play Store also includes notifications for the Play Store, notifications for the Play Store app[アプリ]tab and[ゲーム]tab’s[For You]In-app events are now embedded in new locations, such as sections, within Play Store search results, and under specific search results. You can search by app title or, on the search screen itself, override other recommendations before entering your query. Recently, Google was also spotted testing ads at this location.

Google’s Play Console includes an updated reporting section so developers can track how their promotional content and in-app events are performing across Google Play.

Google notes that only “high quality” games and apps can promote events and other content through the Play Store, or refer apps to editors. To help developers better understand what that means, we’re launching a unified framework for app and game quality that describes how apps and games are measured across different dimensions.

Elsewhere on Google Play, developers will be able to run in-app product pricing experiments later this month to test different price points across markets. We will also be able to sell in-app products directly on Play through a new kind of promotional content called “Featured Products”. These items appear in their own card under the app’s listing and can also be nominated for promotion in other areas of the Play Store.

Being able to market more than just the app download itself across the Play Store reflects the maturity of the app store market, where users aren’t just looking for new apps to try, but what they can do within an app. We also want updates on what’s happening and what’s for sale. they already own and use.

The changes are rolling out at different times, some arriving in the next few days, while others are expected throughout the year.