E-commerce & Digital
Visual search (shop by photo)
Let customers upload or take a photo and find visually similar products in your range. Bridges the gap between inspiration (social media, real world) and purchase.
5–15%
increase in conversion from visual search users
Opportunity assessment
Minor improvement. Small efficiency gain with limited effect on overall turnover or bottom line.
Moderate effort. Requires configuration, prompt engineering, and testing. A capable team can get there but expect several months.
Moderate data needs. Works with data most businesses hold, but will likely need consolidation, cleaning, or reformatting before use.
Low risk. Limited external exposure. A human reviews output before it reaches anyone outside the team.
Light people impact. A new tool slots into an existing workflow. Minimal training needed. Most people will adapt quickly.
Tooling required
Things to consider
Visual search accuracy depends on the quality and consistency of your product imagery. If your catalogue has inconsistent backgrounds, angles, and lighting, the matching quality drops.
Works best for visually distinctive categories — fashion, homeware, furniture — where appearance drives purchase intent. Less effective for commodity products where specifications matter more than looks.
Conversion from visual search is typically higher than text search because the intent is stronger — the customer has already seen something they like.
Experiment starter: Implement visual search on one product category (e.g. dresses, sofas). Measure usage, match quality (do customers click the results?), and conversion rate versus text search users over 4 weeks.
Go deeper in the playbook
Section — Opportunity Identification, including the AI Opportunity Assessment ScorecardSection — The Tooling LandscapeThis is an automation opportunity — see the relevant playbook section for how to approach it.More in E-commerce & Digital
Product categorisation at scale
Automatically assign products to the correct site taxonomy categories using title, description, and attributes. Removes a bottleneck on new product onboarding.
Site search query analysis
Analyse search queries for intent, gaps, and failed searches. Identify where customers can't find what they want and prioritise catalogue improvements.
A/B test copy generation
Generate multiple headline, CTA, and banner copy variants for testing. Covers different value propositions, tones, and lengths with a single brief.
AI Transformation Playbook
Ready to assess your own opportunities?
The playbook gives you the full 150-opportunity directory, scoring tools, and 100+ templates for every stage of an AI transformation programme.