Online shopping can be an inconsistent experience depending on which retailer you use. And Shopify is one of the few companies looking to tackle this: they provide eCommerce software and back-end technology for up-and-coming shops and retailers who want to sell stuff over the Internet. And they've been very successful at that: over 1.4 million merchants use Shopify to reach their customers and sell their products safely and easily. Google also has a partnership with Shopify that allows merchants to sell their merchandise over their shopping network. Now, that partnership is going one step further.

Google announced today during Google I/O 2021 that they were working with Shopify to allow merchants to make their products more easily discoverable across Google. This means that Shopify merchants will be able to have their products show up on Search, Shopping, YouTube, Images, and more. Google did not give out much other detail about this, but we're guessing that Shopify products will integrate within search results and seamlessly into other services whenever you're looking for something.

This announcement comes together with other improvements Google is making to their shopping experience and other AI-related improvements, including what Google calls the "Shopping Graph". The Shopping Graph is an AI-enhanced technology that, according to Google, "understands a constantly-changing set of products, sellers, brands, reviews and most importantly, the product information and inventory data we receive from brands and retailers directly," as well as "how those attributes relate to one another". The Shopping Graph aims to connect people with over 24 billion listings available online and deliver products in real-time that are available right that instant. The Shopify integration might have a role in their Shopping Graph, but they didn't make this immediately clear during their keynote.

Google Shopping Graph

Other changes they've added to their shopping experience include Lens integration: you can take a picture, scan it with Lens, and if it recognizes a relevant product, it'll link you with a listing. We'll have to wait and see how well this works, but all 3 of these improvements tie together to greatly improve the Google shopping experience.

Google Lens Shopping

Google I/O 2021 has so far been a very exciting day for Android fans all around the world. What do you think?