TikTok adds to search capabilities with a feature that lets users look up images in TikTok Shop

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TikTok is souping up its search. The app has quietly launched a new feature that lets users look up TikTok Shop listings by using their photos as references.

Jonah Manzano, a social media analyst known for testing experimental app features, spotted the new TikTok search feature. On X, Manzano shared a snapshot of a pop-up tab that prompts users to “find similar objects with image search.”

There are several potential applications for the image search function. Some users will snap photos of specific products to see if those items (or similar, cheaper alternatives) are available for sale on TikTok Shop. The ecommerce hub already had its own search bar, but to use it, shoppers had to rely on text descriptions.

Searching with images is a cleaner and simpler solution that is already available on the world’s leading search engine. Google Lens offers similar capabilities to TikTok’s new feature.

TechCrunch notes that access to the TikTok Shop image search is limited to users in the United States and Southeast Asia (where TikTok operates an expansive ecommerce empire). If you live in one of those regions and have the latest version of the TikTok app, you should be able to spot a camera icon on the right side of the TikTok Shop search bar. Tapping that icon will bring up the new image search.

For the past two years, industry leaders like Google have been paying attention to TikTok’s viability as a search engine. To capitalize on that trend, the ByteDance-owned app updated its video descriptions to allow for the inclusion of more searchable keywords. In spite of that investment, TikTok’s Gen Z and young Millennial base cooled on the app’s search capabilities, according to a 2023 report from CivicScience.

Though some users may be losing interest in TikTok-as-a-search-engine, the app has plenty of reasons to continue development in that area. Search ads, which TikTok introduced last year, offer a valuable revenue stream for brands. Creators, meanwhile, can benefit from TikTok Search Insights, which reveal the most-searched topics on the app.

For TikTok, more searches lead to more data that can be applied to ads and creator-facing features. And with more support for search coming to TikTok Shop, more than 500,000 sellers in the U.S. are in line for potential sales boosts as well.