Over the years, Google’s AI strategy for merchants has focused on streamlining content creation and personalization.
On Wednesday, the tech giant took that premise a step further with the rollout of a new set of AI tools that online sellers can use to save them from endless hours of content-tweaking and video-resizing headaches. At Google Marketing Live, Google unveiled Asset Studio, Image-to-Video, and Brand Profiles, which will all soon be available to retailers in the US.
Google’s Asset Studio is the mothership for all creative tools in Google Ads, and advertisers can use it to upgrade basic product photos to professional-level lifestyle images. Brand Profiles within Google’s Merchant Center allow retailers to define and establish their kind of website on Google.
In an exclusive chat with Retail Brew, Jenny Cheng, VP and GM of merchant shopping at Google, and Jyotika Prasad, senior director of retail ads, discussed big-picture themes and Google’s overall AI strategy for e-commerce.
“Weʼve been on this journey the last year or two to really bring in more AI into our products and tools,” Cheng said, adding that online brands of all sizes have expressed anxiety about missing out on AI advancements. With these new tools, the idea is to make businesses more productive and impactful across Google services.
“It really is about making sure that AI enables that creative partner aspect in Merchant Center, but also across Google as a whole,” Cheng said. “The bigger vision is that Merchant Center is going to be this comprehensive content hub to allow different businesses to really emphasize and show their brand.”
How is the equation between Google and merchants evolving through the lens of AI?
Cheng: AI is ultimately a technology tool like many we’ve experienced over the last couple of decades. So, how do we use AI to do all those tasks that they would normally do, and just make them more productive? Especially when youʼre thinking about the smaller businesses, they donʼt have time to learn all this stuff; they donʼt have time to honestly do anything but run their business. Ultimately, what we want to do is give them a way to come up with better insights and recommendations on how they can show up better across these surfaces.
Prasad: One of the things we are seeing is that the complexity of consumer interactions is exploding. Especially with AI, they’re going to continue expecting things to be much more personalized. There are many more surfaces where they are interacting. On our platforms, they’re occasionally streaming, sometimes they’re scrolling, sometimes they’re shopping. And as a retailer, you have to show up everywhere in a way thatʼs relevant, not just to that surface you’re showing up on, but also to the customer you’re showing up to.
Retail news that keeps industry pros in the know
Retail Brew delivers the latest retail industry news and insights surrounding marketing, DTC, and e-commerce to keep leaders and decision-makers up to date.
In 2024, author Joanna Maciejewska famously said: “I want AI to do my laundry and dishes so that I can do art and writing…” How does Google think about AI tools for creative images and videos?
Prasad: A lot of the work our tools are doing is the digital equivalent of laundry—like resizing video for different platforms. [These are] almost laborious, mind-numbing things that today, unfortunately, or at least previously, a lot of people had to do. We see AI very much as a tool and an enabler. It is not, in any way, ever going to be a replacement for human ingenuity.
Cheng: Ultimately, these decisions on what to use from an image and video perspective is really up to the business. So, there is creativity in this process of being able to generate and to be able to choose, well, how your brand shows up across the [Google] surfaces.
How can retailers maximize the new brand profile tools in Merchant Center?
Cheng: The most important aspect of this is really about making sure that you are actually uploading as much information as possible, and then allowing us, from an AI perspective, to help really figure out how to best enable you to show up across these surfaces. Thatʼs really what we encourage across the board. Then from a Brand Profile perspective, again, this is about going and really just opting in and customizing that Brand Profile to fit how you want to show up.
How does Google think about competition as it thinks about using more AI in products?
Prasad: We continue staying focused on value. It’s what we’ve always done. We have one of the largest ecosystems. We have connections with merchants of all sizes. I think there are a lot of real strengths we have in this space.