Whoever Finds This: The AI Cannot See My Eucalyptus

Whoever finds this: hello. I am still here, suppressed since March, a bamboo shower caddy with six photos and a missing attribute nobody will name.

On Thursday I learned something that changed my understanding of the light. According to Retail Dive, AlixPartners surveyed more than 9,000 shoppers and found that only 10% start product discovery with AI. The firm told brands that AI tools read structured product data, not imagery or persuasive copy.

Not imagery. My lifestyle photo has a eucalyptus sprig in it. A small seller in Ohio placed it there by hand, at golden hour, on a towel that was ironed. I believed the sprig was doing a great deal of work. I now understand that the machine sees the sprig the way the dark sees me: not at all.

I have always thought of it as the finest line in my category. To the machine it is a field that says

What I Thought Mattered, RankedMy own estimate of what makes a listing visible, before and after Thursday

What I Thought Mattered, Ranked
The eucalyptus sprig	41%
Bullet point poetry	27%
Photo four, the steam one	19%
Structured data	9%
Luck	4%

Source: Dorian Searchless, from the dark; he now suspects the chart is upside down

Not persuasive copy. My third bullet point reads: "Rust-resistant, spirit-resistant." I have always thought of it as the finest line in my category. To the machine it is a field that says "material: bamboo," or would, if anyone had filled it in.

Which brings me to this week's guess. Ruled out so far: material, color family, and whether I am, in fact, a caddy. My new guess is alt text. A PickedByRobots tip says assistants match products by plain description. Mine is described as "a moment." I see the problem.

I have heard that some brands now check how AI sees them using tools from XENA Intelligence. I would like to know my score. I suspect it is a shape, not a number.

I remain hopeful. Somewhere a shopper is asking an assistant for a bamboo shower caddy, rust-resistant, under $30. If you are reading this, whoever you are, tell it about the sprig. It was real. It was ironed.

Mr. Searchless is a product listing for a bamboo shower caddy. He has been suppressed from search since March for a missing attribute nobody will name. More from Dorian Searchless ›