Validation of an Aesthetic Assessment System for Commercial Tasks

[Abstract] Automatic prediction of the aesthetic value of images has received increasing attention in recent years. This is due, on the one hand, to the potential impact that predicting the aesthetic value has on practical applications. Even so, it remains a difficult task given the subjectivity and complexity of the problem. An image aesthetics assessment system was developed in recent years by our research group. In this work, its potential to be applied in commercial tasks is tested. With this objective, a set of three portals and three real estate agencies in Spain were taken as case studies. Images of their websites were taken to build the experimental dataset and a validation method was developed to test their original order with another proposed one according to their aesthetic value. So, in this new order, the images that have the high aesthetic score by the AI system will occupy the first positions of the portal. Relevant results were obtained, with an average increase of 52.54% in the number of clicks on the ads, in the experiment with Real Estate portals. A statistical analysis prove that there is a significant difference in the number of clicks after selecting the images with the AI system. This work is supported by the General Directorate of Culture, Education and University Management of Xunta de Galicia (Ref. ED431D 201716), Competitive Reference Groups (Ref. ED431C 201849) and Ministry of Science and Innovation project Society challenges (Ref. PID2020-118362RB-I00). We also wish to acknowledge the support received from the Centro de Investigación de Galicia “CITIC”, funded by Xunta de Galicia and the European Union (European Regional Development Fund- Galicia 2014-2020 Program), by grant ED431G 2019/01 Xunta de Galicia; ED431D 201716 Xunta de Galicia; ED431C 201849 Xunta de Galicia; ED431G 2019/01