Facebook Inc. today made a new e-commerce play in the form of Facebook Shops, a service that offers businesses free storefronts on both Facebook itself and Instagram.

Pitched as an easy way for businesses to set up a single online store for customers, Facebook Shops allows users to choose the products they want to feature from their offerings and then customize the look and feel of their shop with a cover image and branding colors. The service is available via a business’ Facebook page or Instagram profile, where users can discover goods for sale through stories and ads.

The shops are powered by third-party providers such as BigCommerce Pty. Ltd., WooCommerce, ChannelAdvisor Corp., CedCommerce, Cafe24 Inc., Tienda Nube and Feedonomics LLC. The tie-up means that those currently using those services can easily advertise their wares on Facebook as well as new users.

“Right now many small businesses are struggling and with stores closing, more are looking to bring their business online,” Facebook said in its announcement. “Our goal is to make shopping seamless and empower anyone from a small business owner to a global brand to use our apps to connect with customers.”

The offer upfront may sound like fairly standard e-commerce fare, but it becomes more interesting with the use of artificial intelligence.

In a separate announcement, Facebook launched GrokNet, a universal computer vision system designed for shopping. The AI-powered system has been designed to identify fine-grained product attributes across billions of photos including fashion, auto and home decor.

The system makes its debut on Facebook Marketplace and well as with Facebook Shops with Facebook testing automatic product tagging.

Facebook has far grander plans for the AI system than tagging, however, such as an AI lifestyle system that can make product recommendations based on personal tastes. The system, at least in theory, can take existing user photos such as home decor and what the user regularly wears to match home decor and clothing suggestions.

“Shopping is extremely challenging for AI systems to tackle because personal taste is so subjective,” Facebook’s AI team said. “To build a truly intelligent assistant, we need to teach systems to understand each individual’s taste and style — and the context that matters when searching for a product to fit a specific need or situation. In addition, for a system to work for our platforms, it needs to work for everyone’s subjective preferences, globally.”

While certainly sounding next-generation, the deployment initially will be simpler, with recommendations such as colors and materials when sellers upload a picture to Marketplace. On the buyer’s side, it will allow users to search for more granular product details. In on example, the AI system allows search Marketplace not just for black chairs but specifically for a black leather sectional sofa — even if the seller didn’t explicitly add those details to the description.

Image: Facebook