Google Lens gets a free update to make high street shopping easier and cheaper

We are currently in one of the busiest periods of the year when it comes to shopping and that's only going to increase in the next few weeks. If you're organised, you might have started and finished your Christmas shopping already, but if you're more like us, you've not even thought about it yet.

Your attention might even be more focused on the upcoming Black Friday deals to save a few pennies on pressies and more.

Before online retailers popped up, shopping was an in-store experience and Google has just introduced a new update to Google Lens that could give you the best of both online and in-store shopping worlds.

In-store shopping allows you to see things in the flesh and decide if it's what you're looking for, while online shopping lets you shop around easily for the best deal.

The update to Google Lens on Android and iOS uses AI to transform the in-store and local shopping experience, Google said in its latest The Keyword blog.

When you're shopping in store, you will be able to "snap a photo to find product information, similar products in-stock, whether a store's price is competitive and shopper reviews".

It will work across beauty products, toys and electronics to start with, and at stores that share their local inventory with Google. It means that if you see something within one of those categories at a store you are shopping in, you can take a picture and then find out whether the price the store is offering is competitive. You can also find out what else there might be that's similar and where else you might be able to find it.

Google said the update is made possible by major advancements in its AI image recognition technology, and it is available through the Google app on both iOS and Android.

For now, it is only available to users in the US, and to those sharing their precise location. We suspect it will come to the UK and other countries at some point soon though, so watch this space.