Samsung's 'Circle to Search' AI Nails Outfit Identification
Samsung's new 'Circle to Search' AI tool, debuting on the Galaxy S26, is earning praise for its ability to visually search items from the phone's camera. A CNET test showed it successfully identified a full outfit and provided purchase links, showcasing how visual AI is becoming a powerful catalyst for impulse shopping.
The "Circle to Search" feature is powered by Google's AI, specifically leveraging the reasoning and planning capabilities of Gemini 3. This allows the tool to go beyond single-item identification and simultaneously search for multiple objects within a single image or screen grab. The underlying technology processes the request in multiple steps, identifying relevant items, running simultaneous searches, and then cross-referencing the results to provide a comprehensive response. This new functionality debuted on the Samsung Galaxy S26 series and Google's own Pixel 10 devices. Shopping-related queries are already a primary use case for the feature, and this update enhances that by allowing users to, for example, circle an entire outfit on social media and receive search results for each individual piece of clothing and accessory at once. To further streamline the shopping experience, Google has integrated a virtual try-on option directly within the Circle to Search interface in markets where the feature is available. The technology behind Circle to Search is an evolution of Google Lens and its "multisearch" capability, which was first introduced in April 2022. Multisearch allows users to combine images and text in their queries, for instance, by taking a picture of a dress and adding the word "green" to find it in a different color. This addresses the common challenge of not having the right words to describe a visual search query. The broader e-commerce landscape is increasingly adopting visual search, with major players recognizing its potential to reduce the friction between inspiration and purchase. Pinterest has been a pioneer in this space with its Lens feature, which now drives hundreds of millions of visual searches monthly. Amazon has also upgraded its visual search with "Lens Live," a real-time scanning feature that instantly recognizes products as a user points their camera at them. The global market for visual search was valued at $41.72 billion in 2024 and is projected to grow to $151.60 billion by 2032. This growth is driven by consumer demand, as 85% of shoppers place more importance on visual information than text. For retailers, implementing AI-powered visual search can lead to significant increases in conversion rates, with some seeing up to a 30% rise.
