Buying with bots: AI search raises the bar for tailored shopping and transparency

With AI platforms like Perplexity adding new ways to shop with generative AI, there’s a growing need for AI to justify its recommendations — just like reviews from publishers and content creators.

This week, Perplexity became the latest AI search platform to debut new shopping assistant tools to help people search and buy products. The platform, “Buy With Pro,” offers product recommendations based on text-based chats along with a “Snap To Shop” visual search similar to Google Lens. Meanwhile, a new program for merchants offers an increased chance of being featured in recommendations, payment integrations, free API access to build Perplexity search into retail websites, a dashboard with search and shopping trends.

Arriving just a week after Perplexity introduced ads, “Buy With Pro” is just one of the ways major AI players are more deeply integrating generative AI into how people find products — and how companies market them. Others include Google’s new updates for Google Shopping, Amazon’s chat-based AI shopping assistant Rufus, eBay’s “Shop The Look” and Klarna’s AI shopping assistant.

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