Amazon, Google enhance visual search features

Amazon and Google are enhancing their visual search tools as consumers seek more seamless, intuitive ways to search for products online.

• Amazon’s recent updates allow users to enhance visual searches with text, upload an image and circle the item they want to search for, or tap a “More like this” button on any product image in Amazon’s search results to find similar products.
• Amazon is also adding video to search results and giving users image suggestions while they’re typing in the search bar.
• Meanwhile, Google’s recent updates enable Google Lens users to search by voice or by recording video in the app.
• Google will roll out shopping ads alongside Google Lens visual search results later this year.

Why it matters: Consumers’ search habits are evolving, moving away from traditional search destinations toward visually driven platforms that promote discovery.

Though Amazon and search engines like Google are the No. 1 and No. 2 places consumers start their search for products online, per Jungle Scout’s Q2 2024 Consumer Trends report, they face competition from other retailers like Walmart and Target, as well as social platforms like TikTok and Pinterest.

The catch: Visual search hasn’t hit mainstream adoption.

• While only 10% of US adults regularly use visual search, 42% are at least somewhat interested in using the tool, according to an August 2024 survey from EMARKETER and Bizrate Insights.
• Younger consumers are most likely to use visual search—22% of consumers ages 16 to 34 have seen or bought an item via visual search compared with 17% of 35- to 54-year-olds and 5% of consumers ages 55 and older, per a November 2023 survey from Acxiom conducted by MTM.

Amazon and Google have evidence that visual search is catching on.

• Visual searches worldwide increased 70% YoY, per Amazon.
• Google gets 20 billion Lens searches a month, 4 billion related to shopping.

They aren’t the only ones hoping to catch users’ attention with visual search features.

• TikTok began testing visual search in June, allowing users to take or upload a photo of a product to find similar items on TikTok Shop.
• Fashion resale marketplace Poshmark introduced visual search for its users.
• “Tools like visual search can be especially helpful [in resale], both for buyers who might see a product, might just want to be able to use their camera and match it as well as for sellers who can take a photograph of their product,” our analyst Sky Canaves said on a recent “Reimagining Retail” podcast.

The bottom line: To keep shoppers searching on their platforms, Amazon and Google must ensure a seamless, engaging, and relevant search process—and visual search can help. But as they build out their visual search capabilities, so do their competitors, making it essential for these platforms to stay on the cutting edge.

This was originally featured in the Retail Daily newsletter. For more retail insights, statistics, and trends, subscribe here.