Today, artificial intelligence is becoming a revolutionary force in a variety of industries, and the fashion and retail sector is no exception. With the growing popularity and capabilities of systems like ChatGPT, pioneering companies are exploring innovative ways to integrate AI into their operations, from product design to customer experience.
Discover some success stories in the implementation of AI in the fashion sector in brands such as Mango or Desigual.
AI continues to grow
The AI fever continues to grow. ChatGPT has shown the potential of generative AI and OpenAI is already closing deals with developers to implement its GPT-4 language model in different applications. The improvements in the experience promise to become a great support for users.
According to McKinsey, the use of such tools can generate an extra operating profit of between $150 million and $275 million in the fashion industry. The consultancy underlines that AI not only automates, but also “augments and accelerates” processes.
AI use cases in the retail sector
Mango
Mango has developed a conversational generative AI platform for internal use. This tool will be used in collection design and after-sales management. Although the integration of technologies such as ChatGPT, Google’s BARD and Microsoft’s open-AI is not new to the industry, Mango is looking to integrate them into its internal platform. The system, called Lisa, has two main objectives: to assist in production (trend analysis, product design) and to improve after-sales services.
While AI will help in inventory management, RFID technology will remain essential for real-time traceability. Lisa’s purpose is to act as a co-pilot for employees, not to replace them. Mango began exploring AI in 2018 and has created several platforms that implement this technology in areas such as pricing and personalisation. The company has already co-created more than 20 garments with the help of artificial intelligence.
Zalando
German online fashion retailer Zalando has announced the integration of ChatGPT into its app and website. A bet with which the multinational promises to take advantage of the full potential of generative AI to improve the shopping experience of its online fashion customers. It is a new fashion assistant based on ChatGPT, with which customers will be able to communicate while browsing the Zalando catalogue.
The firm claims that the customer will be able to explain exactly what they are looking for or even ask for an opinion with questions such as: “What should I wear for a communion in Santander in May?”, and that the AI will be able to understand what the customer is asking for and offer alternatives. At the bottom of the chat, the products recommended by the AI will appear along with the best combinations.
In the future, they claim that the assistant will be able to take into account the customer’s personal preferences based on their shopping history; favourite brands, favourite clothes, colours or sizes.
The first beta version of the assistant will be available only to a small group of customers in Germany, Ireland, the UK and Austria, with support in English and German.
“We are excited to experiment with ChatGPT to help our customers discover even more fashion products they will love,” says Zalando’s Vice President of Personalisation and Recommendation, Tian Su.
“This is just the beginning, we are focusing our efforts on understanding our customers’ needs and preferences even better, and exploring the potential that ChatGPT can bring to the shopping experience. In the meantime, we will continue to test and introduce new solutions to learn how our customers want to interact with our Fashion Assistant to offer them the best possible experience,” he adds.
Sephora
They have implemented a virtual assistant called “Sephora Virtual Artist” that uses this technology to provide personalised product recommendations and make-up tutorials.
Users can interact with the virtual assistant in natural language and receive personalised recommendations based on their preferences and skin type.
In addition, the app also relies on virtual reality technology and uses facial recognition to allow users to try the products. The app scans the face, detects the position of the eyes, lips and cheeks to place the product in the right place and allows the user to visualise the final result on their face.
Levi Strauss & Co.
Levi’s has announced that it will partner with an artificial intelligence company to “complement” human models with AI-generated models. Its main goal is to generate personalised avatars to increase the diversity of models wearing its clothes, according to the brand’s statement.
Levi’s announced that this does not mean that it will stop using real models, but that it seeks to complement them and thus increase their number and diversity for products in a sustainable way.
French lingerie company Undiz (owned by the Etam group) has also tested this technique in its latest advertising campaign (indicating alongside the photographs that the models had been generated by AI, as required by French law).
Desigual
In Spain, Desigual is one of the companies already using generative AI for garment design through the Catalan platform Fermat. Different generative AI tools allow designers to co-create on a digital whiteboard from drawings, images and other raw data.
The platform works as a customised SaaS with historical data on fashion collections. The company claims that it saves six hours for each designer. Eva Sirera, the firm’s technology leader, says that this technology could be extended to other areas at Desigual, such as marketing, to virtually test different campaigns before executing them.
Discover CognoGPT
At Cognodata we have built CognoIA, an artificial intelligence accelerator platform based on advanced analytics, machine learning and generative AI that allows us to streamline execution and inject our expertise into the projects we undertake. Specifically, we have developed CognoGPT as a module within this platform for the application of capabilities to see, hear, speak, search, understand and accelerate advanced decision making in new use cases.