World enews: Google will help Play Store developers build out their listings with generative AI

Google is making generative AI tools available to Play Store developers in an attempt to make it easier for them to build out their app listings. It’s one of a pair of AI-powered features Google is announcing for its Android app store at its I/O developer conference today, alongside a new review summary feature that will use AI to summarize app reviews. Other features include a machine translation feature for listings and new options for promoting apps.

The search giant is characterizing the generative AI tool as an experimental feature that’s designed to make drafting a listing easier. “Just open our AI helper, enter a couple of prompts like audience and key theme, and it will generate a draft you can edit, discard, or use,” its blog post reads. Google says the feature is available “starting today” for English text.

A screenshot of the generative AI feature in action.

Image: Google

Presumably, the hope is that developers will use this tool alongside human copywriters and editors, but as with similar generative AI features, there’s the risk it will just lead to an increase in low-quality text.

Generative AI will also be used in tandem with user reviews as part of another experimental feature. The idea is that AI can be used to summarize the hundreds or thousands of reviews that users may have submitted for a particular app, helping would-be downloaders see what the consensus might be about it at a glance. This feature will initially be available in English, but Google plans to expand it later this year.

Although this feature seems limited in scope for now, it’s not hard to imagine Google eventually rolling something similar out across its other services that offer user reviews like Google Maps. The announcement offers an interesting hint as to how Google is thinking generative AI could be used across its broad lineup of services.

Aside from AI, Google is also highlighting a series of other features for Play Store developers in an attempt to make it easier for them to list and promote their apps. There’s a Google Translate-powered feature to make it easier to produce listings in 10 different languages, a streamlined process for designing listings that show different content depending on who’s viewing them, and new surfaces for showcasing Play Store apps.