Google is set to make a change that could make it more competitive with Amazon and other ecommerce marketplaces.
Starting on October 31, Google will begin automatically updating merchant's product price and availability in Google Shopping ads based on the advertiser's website listing and other triggers without placing schema.org markup that was previously required (
the feature isn't actually new, but rather the ability to trigger it without the Schema.org markup in place).
Google will reportedly use a combination of statistical models and machine learning to detect and extract product data from a retailer's website (
look for and identify coded signals on a website page that would determine price and availability) in order to update a product's price and availability in shopping ads according to emails sent to ecommerce advertisers last week.
Do note that the feature will turn on by default; merchants, however, will be able to opt-out of the program.