Google Lens will factor location for shopping searches

With 20% of the 20 billion visuals searches every month focused on shopping, Google is updating Lens to use location for those queries.

When taking a picture of beauty items, electronics, or toys, Google Lens will now show “product insights tailored to the store you’re in.” This includes product information, price comparisons with other stores, videos, user reviews, and similar in-stock products.

This works at “stores of all sizes that share their local inventory with Google.” Google credits “major advancements in our AI image recognition technology.” This is available for Google Lens on Android and iOS starting today if you have the (precise) location permission enabled for the Google app. 

…more than half say they’ve left a store empty-handed because they didn’t feel confident enough to buy. This new feature can give shoppers the information and confidence they need to make a decision on the spot.

Meanwhile, on the payments front, Google Pay is adding Afterpay as a buy now, pay later (BNPL) option when checking out, with Klarna coming soon. This joins Affirm and Zip earlier this year.

Google is also expanding the virtual card feature that masks your card number for online transactions. After supporting American Express, Capital One, and Citi, Discover is coming for those that “set up and use a virtual card from their Chrome or Android device.”

Finally, Google talked about “piloting a service to help merchants better identify fraudulent transactions and help prevent fraudsters from using stolen financial information.” It involves a risk score for transactions that merchants can use to approve or decline purchases. At the same time, it will help unblock legitimate transactions marked as fraud.