Google LLC is targeting retailers with its latest batch of artificial intelligence services that it says will help them deliver more personalized, real-time experiences in to consumers.

The new services, announced today, have been branded as Google’s Product Discovery Solutions for Retail. They include a Recommendations AI engine that’s now generally available.

According to Google, Recommendations AI helps retailers to deliver highly personalized product recommendations at scale and across all channels. In other words, it enables retailers to suggest products that are likely to interest visitors on their websites or applications, based on their previous browsing history and other data.

Google said it uses Google Cloud’s latest machine-learning architectures, so retailers can dynamically adapt to real-time user behavior and changes, accounting for variables such as assortment and pricing.

Also available today is Vision API Product Search, which enables shoppers to search for a particular item they’re trying to find by uploading an image to the retailer’s website or social media platforms. The API then uses Google’s latest object recognition algorithms to search through the retailer’s product catalog to find similar or complementary items that might interest the shopper.

Finally, Google announced an upcoming service called Cloud Search for Retail that’s currently available in private preview. This enables retailers to embed “high-quality search functionality” into their websites and mobile apps, so shoppers can find the products they’re looking for more easily, Google said.

Google said its new AI services for retailers come at a time when more consumers than ever before are shopping online thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic. As such, retailers are facing more pressure to modernize their e-commerce portals to create the seamless online experience that shoppers demand.

“As the shift to online continues, smarter and more personalized shopping experiences will be even more critical for retailers to rise above their competition,” said Carrie Tharp, vice president of retail and consumer at Google Cloud. “Retailers are in dire need of agile operating models powered by cloud infrastructure and technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning to meet today’s industry demands.”

Google isn’t alone in using its cloud technologies to try and aid retailers at a time when they’re doing more business online than ever before. Last week, Microsoft Corp. announced the launch of a new vertical cloud platform for retailers that bundles its Azure Cloud, Microsoft Advertising, Microsoft 365, Dynamics 365 and Power Platform services.

Holger Mueller, an analyst with Constellation Research Inc., said Google’s new tools were yet another example of the verticalization trend in cloud computing that began in earnest in 2020.

“Google wants to make AI easier for retailers, so it’s tuning its horizontal vision API and Recommendation API to the specific demands of the industry,” Mueller said.

The key thing with today’s offering, Mueller said, is that Google really is delivering a true vertical retail capability with retail-specific product search. “It’s nothing too dramatic as it builds on existing Google capabilities, but it’s still a key step towards making it easier for retailers to adopt AI-powered next-generation applications,” Mueller said.

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