Yahoo! Search Expands AI Shopping Assistant to 200+ Categories

Tokyo, Japan — LY Corporation announced Thursday the expansion of its AI-powered shopping assistant on Yahoo Japan Search to include more than 200 additional product categories, such as fashion, food, cosmetics, and furniture.

The Shopping AI Assistant feature asks users up to three questions to generate a list of product recommendations based on their responses.

The service, previously limited to consumer electronics since its launch in October 2025, now covers 276 categories across 16 product segments.

Additional categories now covered include food and beverage, beauty and hair care, kitchen goods, furniture, sporting equipment, baby products, and pet supplies.

For example, users searching for shampoo are asked about hair and scalp concerns before receiving up to five product recommendations.

Users may answer additional questions to further narrow the results to three items.

The assistant is available in the Yahoo Japan app for iOS and Android, in the mobile browser version of Yahoo Japan, and via web searches in the LINE app.

According to the company, the service is not intended for users under 13.

LY Corporation stated that the assistant uses Google Cloud's Vertex AI and incorporates product evaluation data and expert reviews from the product comparison platform MyBest.