Google's AI Mode will soon give you outfit, room design inspo

Today, Google announced a new AI shopping feature that can suggest outfits and home decor ideas, plus connect users with products that look similar to its recommendations. The feature will be available to U.S. users within the Google AI Mode search experience this fall.

The feature is an expansion of Google's "Vision Match" tool, which previously only worked on singular garments. Users could describe a piece of clothing in Search, and the feature would generate images of the garment based on the prompt before finding shoppable items that resembled it. Now, Vision Match will soon be able to devise entire outfit suggestions and room design ideas.

"Our Vision Match technology will generate a range of visual options for your query and use the 50 billion products in the Shopping Graph to show product listings or visual matches we think you’ll like," said Danielle Buckley, Google's Director of Product, Consumer Shopping, in a company blog post.

Interior design, in particular, is already a popular use case for AI image generation; dedicated tools like VisualizeAI and RoomsGPT exist for that specific purpose. Unlike those tools, Google's Vision Match won't be able to produce ideas based on uploaded images — just text prompts. But its real-life buying recommendations should streamline the process of turning a concept into reality. (Notably, Vision Match's new capabilities will also be completely free to use.)

The news comes alongside Google's formal launch of the Clueless-esque "try it on" tool it first announced at Google I/O in May. (It's now available to all U.S. users on mobile and desktop.) To use it, simply tap the "try it on" icon on Google's product listings for shirts, pants, or dresses and upload a full-length photo of yourself. Google's AI will then show you how the garment might look on you. Mashable's Timothy Beck Werth was "equally impressed and mortified" by its results when he tested the beta version of the tool this spring.

Google has also timed its Vision Match upgrade with a useful update to its price alerts feature. U.S. users can now pick their preferred size, color, and/or budget when they start tracking a product's price. (Waiting to buy some Puma Ballet Speedcats until they're at least 20% off? Google can flag you when the moment strikes.)

"The Shopping Graph has products and prices from all across the web — so we’ll let you know when there’s an offer that meets your criteria," Buckley wrote in the blog post. "No more constantly checking to see if that bag you’re eyeing is finally at the right price for you or forgetting to come back to a product you loved!"