Facebook's competitor to eBay and Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, has been given an artificially-intelligent update to celebrate two years since its launch.
In a blog post, Facebook describes how AI in Marketplace can be used to compare the goods you're selling with other products on the platform, thereby giving users a suggested price that's more likely to sell.
The specific example Facebook gives is someone selling a home office chair. Marketplace would suggest pricing it between $50-75 based on what similar chairs recently sold for. It will also automatically recognize the chair based on the photo and description and categorize it as "furniture."
Facebook is also testing camera features that can use artificial intelligence to recognize products you might be interested in. For example, if you see a product you like it's possible to snap a photo of it, allow the Marketplace AI to see it, and receive a number of recommendations for similar product listings you might want to purchase.
That concept extends further, with Marketplace AI simplifying tasks such as "completing an outfit or home design project." It's quite plausible for you to now, "upload a photo of your living room and get suggestions on furniture to buy based on your layout and size." We've seen this technology in use before. It's similar to what Google has built into Google Lens or LG has in its smartphones (powered by its ThinQ AI).
Completing outfits is the modus operandi of the Amazon Echo Look, which is a smart-camera that suggests complimentary clothing when you use it to take a photo of yourself. So Amazon will certainly be looking at what Facebook is doing with interest. Consumers have generally been weary of having smart-cameras in their home, but it's possible that having the same functionality within the confines of the Facebook app might make it more palatable.
Facebook is also using artificial-intelligence for detecting and removing unsuitable content on Marketplace, something it's also doing on its general platform with its Rosetta AI. Whether it will be successful remains to be seen. Google's Perspective AI (which has the same aim) can be easily tricked, and Facebook is already under fire due to the recent hack.