eBay is rolling out a brand new AI device for market sellers that may generate a product itemizing from a single photograph.
Obtainable within the eBay app for iOS to begin, with the Android app to comply with within the coming weeks, the device can routinely write a title and outline based mostly on a photograph, in addition to data together with a product launch date, and recommend a class, subcategory, record value and delivery value.
The device builds on eBay’s different efforts to inject AI into the promoting course of, together with AI-generated product catalog descriptions and a background elimination device for itemizing images.
“The ‘photo-to-listing’ device was constructed internally, and the group will use the itemizing knowledge generated to ‘prepare’ the mannequin internally. eBay phrases and circumstances state that we now have a license to make use of itemizing knowledge,” an eBay spokesperson advised TechCrunch by way of e mail. “At eBay, we’re utilizing AI to cut back friction throughout the platform and rework the method of itemizing. With this device, it makes the vendor’s job of itemizing gadgets extremely painless, straightforward, and even enjoyable.”
In Could, Adam Eire, head of eBay’s U.S. enterprise, said in a weblog put up that eBay plans to roll out a plugin that’ll let sellers auto-generate merchandise descriptions based mostly on content material already obtainable throughout the online — powered by an OpenAI language mannequin. In that very same weblog put up, Eire telegraphed the discharge of the device launching right this moment.
eBay says that the device is geared toward addressing the “chilly begin” subject usually skilled by first-time sellers on its platform. Not uncommonly, new sellers are overwhelmed by the quantity of information they should enter to create a aggressive itemizing, eBay claims — so what higher approach to overcome that than by eradicating the necessity to enter data altogether?
eBay’s device converts images to listings. Picture Credit: eBay
“There’s no have to work by means of a chilly begin with AI: as quickly as you’re able to promote, your itemizing is able to put up,” eBay writes in a weblog put up. “We’ve been arduous at work on the subsequent model of a brand new, magical itemizing expertise, which makes use of AI to investigate, analysis and extrapolate data from a small quantity of knowledge offered by the vendor.”
However longtime sellers on eBay don’t seem like happy with the platform’s AI course.
The official eBay neighborhood discussion board and subreddits frequented by sellers are filling up with complaints in regards to the poor high quality of eBay’s description generator, which has been obtainable in restricted checks — with one person on the discussion board, vssoutlet, claiming that eBay’s AI-generated textual content is deceptive and, in some instances, downright untruthful. Vssoutlet factors to a listing for a Pentax SLR digital camera, for which eBay’s AI generated an outline saying the digital camera got here with a lens equipment — an apparent error.
On the subreddit /r/Flipping, a Reddit neighborhood devoted to the artwork of flipping high-profile merch, an eBay vendor going by the title IJustWondering writes that the eBay description generator ceaselessly “re-states the merchandise specifics and the title” and merely “provides some fluff.” One other person, Hardcorelogic, recounts an expertise just like vssoutlet’s, discovering that the AI-written descriptions “comprise errors” and “[are] too lengthy.”
“By the point I acquired carried out fixing [one of the descriptions] and shortening it, I may have written it myself,” Hardcorelogic writes.
This author worries, too, in regards to the photo-recognizing element of eBay’s new generative characteristic. Provided that among the finest laptop imaginative and prescient algorithms right this moment are so plagued with bias that they will’t reliably distinguish Black folks from gorillas, I don’t have excessive hopes for eBay’s take.
That apart, eBay sellers seem like taking subject not solely with generative AI’s tendency to spout mistruths and hallucinate — eBay is effectively conscious of this, as the brand new listing-generating device has a disclaimer warning that the textual content may not be utterly correct — however with the use instances that eBay envisions for it.
Sellers level out that eBay’s AI-generated descriptions aren’t clear, concise or direct sufficient for many consumers. The outline generator tends to be repetitive and verbose, they declare — even for primary gadgets. And the generated textual content doesn’t record the person traits of things, together with their flaws.
eBay actually isn’t the one market embracing AI as a approach to clear up a funnel downside (i.e. convincing extra sellers, which pay revenue-generating promoting charges, to record gadgets — and to make its pages extra discoverable on search engines like google and yahoo). Shopify not too long ago launched AI-generated product descriptions, whereas Amazon rolled out AI-generated summaries of critiques.
The Data reports that Amazon can be piloting AI that’ll enable retailers to generate titles, descriptions and bullet factors for choose merchandise. Not like eBay’s newly launched device, Amazon’s will work not from images however from an inventory of key phrases, and “strictly regulate” the content material allowed within the generated product listings.
However eBay’s roadmap is arguably among the many extra aggressive. And sellers — rightfully so, I’d argue — are starting to query the knowledge of that technique.
