Amazon will show AI product images when you search for some reason

In what may be one of the most questionable uses of AI yet, Amazon announced Wednesday that it will display AI-generated images of products in its shopping app based on users’ searches. That’s right: A retailer where people shop for real-world products thinks showing fake photos will “help” consumers better find what they’re looking for.

Enough already.

Here’s how Amazon says in a blog post that the function will work. Customers may have something in mind, but don’t know the right term to describe it in a way that produces actionable results. (The examples Amazon gives are things like “coldneck” for a shirt style or “rattan” for furniture.)

When someone enters a search query, they’ll be presented with a variety of AI-generated product images below their autocomplete suggestions (see image above).

For example, if you search for a blue gingham dress, you may see a number of clothing styles (short or long sleeves, different lengths, and other differences) appear as visual options. The idea is that when you click on it, you’ll be taken to search results that better suit that style, powered by Amazon’s visual search capabilities.

In reality, it’s a bit of nonsense for a retailer to come up with counterfeit products as a way to direct users to search results.

For starters, it’s potentially misleading: customers who don’t read carefully may think they’re being taken to a page where they can find that exact dress, and then be disappointed when it’s not available. And then there’s the rather obvious question of why create product images when you have a website full of real photos of real products – which is presumably what an online shopper actually wants to see.

The feature follows several other attempts by Amazon to integrate AI into its shopping site and shopping app, with mixed results. What’s more useful is that Amazon already summarizes customer reviews via AI, so you don’t have to read them all to get an idea of ​​a product’s key pros and cons. Even more bizarre, last year it introduced an audio product summary in which AI experts describe the highlights of a product in podcast style.

Other recent AI features include AI-generated “shoppable collages” to direct people to curated pages dedicated to a particular fashion style; Amazon Lens Livethat scans products in view of a camera to find visual similarities; the ability to add text to visual searches; and a visual search widget on the lock screen for iOS.

Earlier this month, Amazon also replaced its Rufus AI chatbot with Alexa for Shopping to enable natural language shopping queries via voice and text.