GrokStyle, a firm that has designed a visual search engine powered by artificial intelligence to let users find products, has been acquired by Facebook. GrokStyle posted a message on its website explaining that it was pleased with the work it has done so far and that it has improved lives around the globe, but now its team and technology are moving on.
While GrokStyle didn’t actually confirm where its team and technology were moving to, Facebook spokeswoman Vanessa Chan confirmed that it was indeed to Facebook, she said:
“We are excited to welcome GrokStyle to Facebook. Their team and technology will contribute to our AI capabilities.”
Facebook nor GrokStyle have revealed how much the firm was bought for nor what conditions, if any, were involved. As to why Facebook would want GrokStyle’s technology, that’s fairly simple to answer. It’ll probably want to leverage the AI-powered visual search on Facebook Marketplace. This will surely drive sales on the platform as consumers will find it easy to search for the products they want to buy.
Additionally, the data that Facebook would collect could be used to enhance its existing AI capabilities in a similar way to how Google leverages Google Lens to feed into its system millions of images to enhance its detection capabilities.