Generative AI
Generative AI is software that creates new content, such as text, images or audio, from patterns it learned from large amounts of existing examples.
- GenAI
What it means
Most software follows rules or looks things up. Generative AI makes something new: a paragraph, a product title, an image. Google’s glossary lists large language models, which write text, alongside models that produce images, music, speech or video.1
In a shop it turns up in two places. It drafts copy such as titles and descriptions, and it powers the assistants that answer shoppers’ questions, such as ChatGPT and Google’s AI Mode.
Google has a rule for the first. A title or description “created using generative AI” goes in structured_title or structured_description, with the digital source type set to trained_algorithmic_media. If both the plain and the structured attribute are sent, Google uses only the plain one.23
Think of it like this
It is like a skilled mimic. Give it enough examples and it produces convincing new ones in the same style, but sounding right and being right are different skills.
For example
A spreadsheet formula that joins “Single ended bath”, “1700 × 700 mm” and “white” into a title is not generative AI. A model asked to write a title for the same bath is, so its output goes in structured_title.2
Why it matters
Generated copy can read well and still claim things the data does not hold. Google’s Misrepresentation policy does not allow offers that represent products in a way that “isn’t accurate, realistic and truthful”.4 Keep a column recording which copy a model wrote, so it can be checked and labelled.
Not to be confused with
Filling a template is different. A spreadsheet formula only ever says what your columns say; a large language model writes new words, which can carry new claims.
Sources
- Google for Developers. Machine Learning Glossary.
- Google Merchant Center Help. Title [title] and structured title [structured_title].
- Google Merchant Center Help. Description [description] and structured description [structured_description].
- Google Merchant Center Help. Misrepresentation.