Google to Move Retailers to New AI-Driven Merchant Platform

Google is moving all retailers to a new version of its Merchant Center.

The change should happen by September, the tech giant wrote on its blog Wednesday (July 24), giving merchants “plenty of time to get acclimated and start benefiting from the updates before the holiday shopping season.”

“We’ve brought over key features, including ones like supplemental data sources and rules that help brands work at scale,” the blog post continued.

Google updated the Merchant Center in May, announcing several new features, including the introduction of visual brand profiles on Google Search, designed to highlight information provided by retailers with engaging product and brand imagery, videos, customer reviews, and current deals and promotions.

To help retailers create better, on-brand content, Google has enhanced its Product Studio, an AI-powered content creation platform, the post said.

Merchants can now generate new product images that align with their company’s style by just uploading an image and adding a prompt describing the scene. Product Studio also allows the generation of videos from just one photo, letting retailers create short videos or GIFs for social media.

According to Wednesday’s blog post, Google is upgrading Product Studio even further, letting users animate still images or tweak existing images to match their brand’s style.

“Google is leveraging its generative AI technology to bring shopping ads to life with three new ad formats,” PYMNTS wrote at the time. “These formats include the ability to connect short-form product videos or videos from creators to ads, allowing shoppers to engage with these videos directly from Search. Additionally, AI summaries will be displayed below the video highlights, providing key details about the product.”

Meanwhile, PYMNTS wrote earlier this year about the way eCommerce merchants were using AI to get a better idea of what their customers wanted. The technology lets them analyze vast quantities of data and use the information to offer better search results.

“For example, AI algorithms can analyze engagement rates, trends, and hashtag performance, enabling retailers to optimize their posts for better visibility and engagement,” Damian Rollison, director of market insights at the online marketing platform SOCi, told PYMNTS in March.

“Additionally, some are leveraging AI to create personalized shopping experiences directly within these social platforms, such as virtual try-ons or AI-driven chatbots that provide product recommendations based on user interactions,” he added.