The Visual Merchandiser page within Merch Studio has received a new look and feel to offer users a better, smoother user experience. By enhancing this page we hope to empower users to more easily carry out core merchandising activities. The redesign comes with:

• a streamlined and simpler layout to help you focus on essentials
• collapsible side panels to give you control over your view
• a range of other UX improvements to enhance the overall responsiveness of the page

Algolia’s Revenue Analytics feature provides customers with a more comprehensive understanding of how Algolia impacts their business. With this recent release, customers can now (1) access the quick analytics bar in the Dashboard 'Browse' page and (2) select to display five additional revenue metrics when visualizing product tiles:

• Number of items added to cart
• Number of purchases
• Add to cart rate
• Purchase rate
• Revenue

Available in the Visual Merchandiser, Visual Editor, and Browse page. These enhancements empower customers to make data-driven decisions and optimize their search strategies for maximum revenue generation.

Rule Conflict Alerts addresses a key issue where users previously did not receive actionable information when creating duplicate, overlapping, or conflicting rules in the Manual and Visual Editor. This often led to rule duplication and user frustration. The new feature now provides real-time notifications about conflicting conditions, enabling users to take corrective actions promptly. This improvement enhances operational efficiency and reduces errors, thus addressing a major point of friction noted by many customers.

Customers can now conceal specific facet values for end-users allowing for more relevant and cleaner search results by hiding facet values that are irrelevant or for internal use only. This feature addresses the need for better customization of search experiences, enhancing the relevance of search results for end-users while streamlining internal processes. Customers can manage these hidden values through the Visual Editor or globally via the index settings pages in Merch Studio or the Dashboard. To utilize this feature, customers must use the latest version of InstantSearch.js (at least 4.72.0). Click here to learn more.

This Private Beta allows you to activate Personalization for any recommendation model with one click and view it in the dashboard. This ensures results are tailored to each user’s preferences by integrating personalization signals, improving the user experience.

No-Code Banners in the Visual Rules Editor enables users to create and manage banners directly through a user-friendly UI, eliminating the need for JSON coding. Banners can be displayed at the top of search and category results for customers using InstantSearch. The feature includes a Banner Consequence in the Visual Editor, support for No-Code Banners in InstantSearch, and updated documentation. 

AI Personalization in the Merchandising Studio in private beta addresses a significant gap in the ranking configuration tools. Previously, configuring and visualizing the impact of AI personalization was not possible within the "Layers of Ranking" widget. With this update, AI Personalization is now integrated into the widget, inviting users who haven't activated it to configure the feature. This feature allows the selection of user tokens to visualize the impact on any query or category page, offering greater control and explainability in a no-code, unified interface. This feature is accessible to all customers in the AI Personalization private beta and will be included in the general availability launch of the feature. Watch demo here.

Merchandising Studio performance has been significantly improved, addressing previous slowness issues. Enhancements in caching, API efficiency, and request management have reduced loading times by 60%, particularly on the Visualize page. These optimizations enhance user experience, ensuring smoother and faster interactions. Further enhancements are in progress to ensure ongoing performance gains.

Revenue Analytics is now out of beta, providing new revenue metrics for improved business decision-making. This highly requested feature closes a competitive gap and enhances the ability to demonstrate the value Algolia brings to your bottom line. Available to all customers on Build, Premium, Elevate, and Elevate Ecomm plans. Click here to learn more.

The new Comparison Mode in Merchandising Studio is designed to enhance transparency and control over ranking factors such as NS, QCat, DRR, and Rules. This unified view allows merchandisers to easily simulate changes and understand the impact of each ranking layer, improving decision-making and identifying potential misconfigurations. By providing clear insights into the AI and ranking system, this feature fosters trust and enables more effective management of result sets. Future updates will continue to refine this tool based on user feedback.