AI can be useful in a lot of places, but there are many scenarios where it doesn’t make sense. Amazon, having been stuffing its app full of AI lately, is now going to use AI to generate images of fake products as you type in search terms.
Available starting today, the Amazon app will generate images of products as you type words into the search bar. With the example of clothing, Amazon shows the AI bar generating a product that matches the user’s description, though the product pictured doesn’t actually exist.
Instead, that image is meant to be used to “find products that look like these AI images.”
Amazon explains that this is meant to bridge the gap between “imagination” and “product discovery.”
Amazon’s newest AI-powered search experience bridges imagination with product discovery in the search bar in the Amazon Shopping app. A customer may want a shirt with a draped collar but can’t think of the term “cowl neck,” or a couch with woven side panels but doesn’t know the word “rattan.” Now, as customers search for products using descriptive language—like color, texture, or pattern—AI-generated images instantly take shape in the suggestions below the search bar, shifting and refining with each word added. Customers can tap the generated image that best aligns with their vision and shop for visually similar products. The feature works best where visual details matter most, and customers can experience it today when searching for items in apparel and home, with more categories available over time.
Beyond that, Amazon is rolling out several other AI updates to its app, including “AI-generated shoppable collages” to help customers “Shop by style,” enabling users to add text to image searches, and adding a “more like this” shortcut for visually-similar products. “Amazon Lens Live” can interact with the real world and answer questions, while Lens will also be getting a homescreen shortcut and “circle to search.”
9to5Google’s Take
Where to begin…
On top of being wildly wasteful in terms of the use of AI resources, the idea of generating fake product images while searching just seems remarkably dumb. People go to Amazon to buy actual, physical products, so having an AI take your search and create things that do not exist makes no sense whatsoever.
Using AI to parse through the millions of actual product images on Amazon and show those during a search, that’s another matter, but creating fake products out of thin air is just baffling, and sure to confuse customers who suddenly cannot find a product that matches what Amazon just showed them in search. Amazon’s pitch of being able to bridge the gap between what a user is looking for and what actually exists is a good idea, but not if the app is just going to generate whatever the user says.
More on Amazon:
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- Amazon’s redesigned Photos app looks like a mix of Apple and Google Photos
- Android 16 will come to Amazon Fire TV despite new VegaOS focus
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