Shopping what we see on our TV screens has long been an industry pipe dream — a great idea in theory that’s been difficult to execute.
Now, two former Google executives think they’ve cracked it. Josh Lanzet, who spent 13 years at Google leading media and entertainment partnerships for streaming, and Jason Fahlstrom, who spent 11 years working on the tech company’s AI strategy, have spent the last two years working with the latest AI and computer vision technology to build Silvr, a startup they’re hoping will bring us this dream of shoppable TV via an app that launches on February 24. Angel investors from Netflix, Disney, Google and LinkedIn backed the startup in a family and friends funding round last month, and the founders are now gearing up to raise $3 million in pre-seed investment.
Silvr’s consumer-facing app allows viewers to point their cameras at their TV or laptop screen to instantly identify and shop the exact item a character is wearing. They’re also building a white-label B2B platform to enable instant commerce for streamers like Netflix and HBO Max, so that viewers can pause and click on their screens to shop.
“For the longest time, the ‘where did you get that?’ problem has been a visual question answered with a text-based answer, but now our consumer app matches it with a visual answer,” Lanzet says. “There’s been object recognition but no fashion recognition, and that’s what Silvr brings.”
Fashion brands and streamers are taking note. Silvr has partnered with over 300 fashion brands ahead of launch, including Alexander McQueen, Isabel Marant, Etro, Alo Yoga, Nike, New Balance, and Ganni. It’s also got major retailers like Nordstrom, Macy’s and Amazon on board, resale and vintage platforms like The RealReal and 1stDibs, and has partnered with Impact.com, CJ and Rakuten, the affiliate networks behind e-commerce attribution. Lanzet and Fahlstrom also say they’re in “active discussions” with all the major streaming platforms for their B2B product, with one platform having already signed a letter of intent.
The founders say the launch is timed to the rapid recent developments in AI and computer vision, consumers’ growing readiness for shoppable entertainment like live shopping, and the accelerating adoption of visual search. AI models have rapidly developed over the last two years so that they can more accurately interpret visual context, with so-called “multimodal” search now possible via the main AI chat platforms like OpenAI, as well as Google Lens and Pinterest Lens — viewers can, technically, already point their cameras at their screens and use these features to identify products within film.