Google to Add AI-Powered Insights and Reports to Merchant Center

Google will roll out new artificial intelligence-powered tools in its Merchant Center in time to help retailers sell during the holiday season.

The tools include new insights and shopping ads updates, the company said in a preview of a Tuesday (Aug. 27) blog post emailed to PYMNTS.

“With new Merchant Center insights tools this year, brands that can stay agile and turn data into decisions will make the most of the shorter holiday shopping season,” Google said in the post, noting that Black Friday falls five days later this year than last year.

One of the new tools will show popular shopping queries, ranked by popularity and organized by topic and product, to help Merchant Center users uncover shopping trends, according to the post. This tool will be launched globally in the coming weeks.

“This means you can jump on viral moments, make better-informed inventory decisions and ensure your product descriptions use the same terms shoppers are,” the post said.

Another new tool will show summaries of recent product performance at the top of the analytics tab and will answer retailers’ specific questions about their product data with new custom reports, per the post. This tool will be available in the United States.

“This tool uses generative AI to translate a user’s request into a custom report that highlights their own performance data,” the post said. “This means you can skip the process of building custom reports manually when you need something more tailored.”

A new third tool will automatically sync in-store availability information from retailers’ websites and integrate it into the Merchant Center to display store details in their Google ads, according to the post.

“It’s less manual work for you and a more convenient, up-to-date shopping experience for your customers,” the post said.

Google said in July that it would move all retailers to a new, AI-driven version of its Merchant Center in time to start benefiting from the updates before the holiday shopping season.

Earlier updates to the Merchant Center included the introduction of visual brand profiles on Google Search and the addition of enhancements to its AI-powered content creation platform, Product Studio.

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