Facebook adds AI to its eBay-style Marketplace

Facebook adds AI to its eBay-style Marketplace to automatically add price suggestions – and it may offer interior design tips in the future

  • New features launched on Tuesday to mark the retail site’s second anniversary
  • Facebook say it will reduce the likelihood of sellers giving-up on their listings
  • Comes after site was slammed for huge data breach affecting 50million people

It was originally designed to rival Craigslist.

And, now its totally eclipsed the defunct site, Facebook have enhanced their eBay-style Marketplace with artificial intelligence.

The new feature, which launched on Tuesday to mark the site’s second anniversary, will streamline the service by automatically adding price suggestions to listings. 

It will also include an auto-categorisation feature to make selling easier.

Currently, Facebook utilises AI to automatically enhance the images uploaded by sellers – improving their brightness or saturation, for example.

Similarly, it is used to seek-out and flag inappropriate content. 

But, for sellers, the new functions will categorise each item based on its image and written description, then suggest a realistic price point. 


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Similar to the feature added to Ebay’s mobile app, earlier this year, Facebook bosses say it will reduce the likelihood of sellers giving-up on their listings – something that affected roughly 10 per cent of listings, last year.

Meanwhile, buyers will be able to enjoy a ‘visual search’ – which allows them to upload a real-world photograph of a desired item and Facebook Marketplace will suggest similar alternatives.

‘Whether someone is discovering an item to buy, listing a product to sell, or communicating with a buyer or seller, AI is behind the scenes making the experience better,’ Marketplace product manager David Kim wrote in a blog post, this week.

Still building his empire: The new features come two years after Mark Zuckerberg introduced Facebook Marketplace to compete with now-defunct Craigslist 

In use: Facebook already utilises AI to automatically enhance the images uploaded by sellers – improving their brightness or saturation, for example

Furthermore, the company is also planning more AI-enhanced features in the future. 

‘Say you liked your friend’s headphones and wanted your own; you could snap a photo of the headphones and Marketplace’s AI technology could recommend similar listings for sale nearby,’ Deb Liu, the VP of Marketplace, wrote in a blog post.

She even suggested it could offer interior design ideas to users. 

‘In the future, AI could help simplify tasks like completing an outfit or home design project. 

‘For example, you could upload a photo of your living room and get suggestions on furniture to buy based on your layout and size.’  

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