Lily AI, which generates product classifications directly from images, has just raised a $25 million Series B.  Lily AI says it measures over 15,000 attributes rather than placing products within standard taxonomies.  Automated classification removes a major obstacle to on-site search, product discovery, recommendations, and demand forecasting.

Nearly one-third of major news publishers have blocked generative AI tools from reading their content.   But that’s a drastic measure which could also exclude their results from conventional search engines.  Microsoft has just given publishers the option to block access by Bing Chat without also removing their content from search results.  We’ll see if competitors do the same.