What Happened
Online home goods retailer Wayfair has launched “Search with Photo,” a visual search tool that leverages artificial intelligence to enable shoppers to find matching home furnishings to the items they take photos of. Available across mobile and desktop devices, shoppers can access the feature via the camera icon in the Wayfair.com search bar, which allows them to snap a photo or upload one from their photo library. The search engine will quickly returns visually similar items available from Wayfair’s inventory for direct purchases. Users can add the products they like to an Idea Board to save for later or share with others.
What Brands Need To Do
This new visual search engine should help Wayfair maintain a competitive edge over other ecommerce sites. With the quick advancement of machine learning and AI-powered solutions, we are starting to see examples of brands primarily using the camera as an input source of the mobile user interface and leverage images to learn about user intent. Previously, Pinterest and Amazon have both launched similar visual search feature that uses the camera as the input source for better understanding what users are looking for and optimize the product discovery process. Brands looking to stay ahead of the digital curve will need to start formulating a “camera strategy” and broaden their methods of customer data collection.
Source: TechCrunch
