Perplexity on Monday added two new features to its platform to provide users with a new shopping experience. The artificial intelligence (AI) search engine is rolling out ‘Buy with Pro’ and ‘Snap to Shop’ features for paying customers. With the former, Perplexity Pro users can now purchase products directly on the platform following recommendations. The latter is similar to Google Lens and allows users to capture an image of a product and share it with an AI search engine to find matches.
In a blog post, the AI firm explained the two new features in detail. Both of these AI Commerce features are currently available to Perplexity Pro users in the US. Buy with Pro will allow users to run queries about a specific product or product recommendations for a particular scenario. When the results appear, users will also see a curated list of recommended products that they can purchase with a single click.
Shopping Perplexity with Pro Interface
Photo Credit: Tangle
Users must first add shipping and billing information to Perplexity’s portal. Once this is done, they can click the Buy with Pro button next to the products to make a purchase directly without leaving the app. The company is also offering free shipping on all orders placed on the platform. If Buy With Pro is not available for a product, the AI firm says it will redirect the user to the merchant’s website.
Along with this, the company is also introducing Snap to Shop feature. Like Google Lens, users can use this feature to point their smartphone’s camera at a product and run a search on it. The AI will find either exact matches or similar products, which can be purchased using the Buy with Pro button. Perplexity says the feature is for times when someone doesn’t know the name of a product or can’t think of its description.
On the retailer side, the AI firm has launched the Perplexity Merchant Program that allows retailers to share product specifications and similar data with the AI firm without paying anything. The company is also offering payment integration and free application programming interface (API) access to create a seamless experience for buyers.
Recently, AI commerce has emerged as a new online shopping experience for buyers. With this, AI streamlines and automates processes like product discovery, customer support, dynamic pricing, AI assistants to answer product queries, etc. Amazon’s Rufus AI, Shopify Magic, and Salesforce’s Einstein AI are some examples of AI commerce enabling tools.
