Working in the fashion industry can be daunting for most because it requires plenty of effort to keep the business running. However, AI is simplifying the process for convenience and productivity. While you can use AI in endless creative ways, this article lists the top 12 ways, highlighting how others use AI to transform the fashion industry.
Personalized Product Recommendations
eCommerce players in the fashion industry can use AI to provide all personalized product recommendations based on the user’s browsing and purchase history. They can also analyze user’s preferences and past choices to suggest highly relevant product recommendations, similar to what people receive in offline clothing stores.
It can significantly boost customer satisfaction, retention, and revenue. Brands like Amazon are going a step further by recommending personalized size recommendations so customers can shop more confidently.
Virtual Try-Ons
Virtual try-on is a novel way to help customers see how clothes will look on them. Companies use augmented reality and artificial intelligence to deploy advanced virtual try-on features in their online stores to boost conversion and reduce return rates.
While several big fashion brands have implemented this technology, Burberry gathered attention for launching its first virtual scarf try-on experience. You can use this feature to virtually explore the brand’s iconic scarves and visualize how they look on you before making any purchase.
Enhanced Marketing Campaigns
Several fashion brands are using generative AI tools to create many marketing campaigns. It not only saves them significant money, but also lets them get creative with the way their collection is displayed. Etro is an Italian fashion house that used AI to launch its Spring 2024 campaign.
The campaign featured gorgeous hues, prints, aesthetic backgrounds, etc. Valentino, Italian’s luxury fashion brand, also used AI for its ‘Essential’ campaign.
Trend Forecasting
An interesting development in the AI fashion world is the potential of using generative AI to aggregate and perform sentiment analysis from social media videos. The information gathered from sentiment analysis can be paired with traditional trend reports and market analysis to predict upcoming fashion trends.
AI can also be used to model fashion trends from numerous consumer data sources. Brands can use the gathered insights to align their upcoming collection with the predicted trends, leading to increased sales.
Design Assistance
Creating new designs for upcoming collections demands plenty of manual labor from designers. The worst part is that most designs end up in the bin, wasting hours spent in the designing phase. Fortunately, AI has put an end to this challenge. Fashion designers can now use tools equipped with AI features to speed up their design and approval process.
For instance, designers can upload their initial sketches on Adobe Firefly’s generative AI tool and let AI reimagine them in various color palettes and themes. It can help them explore how different color combinations look on their design within seconds, facilitating faster decision-making.
Inventory Management
One of the notable ways AI is helping fashion brands sustain their business is optimizing their inventory management. It involves using machine learning, predictive analytics, and data analysis to optimize traditional inventory management practices. The tech helps brands maintain the correct number of products in their stock to meet customer demands, preventing overstocking. While AI can be used in different inventory management processes, it stands out for its supplier management, demand forecasting, and replenishment features.
Detecting Counterfeit Products
A lot of effort goes into designing aesthetic and head-turning designs, but some bad actors try to rip designers off their hard work by blatantly copying their designs. Prominent fashion brands that spend plenty of resources to create authentic designs can now use AI to scout the internet and find products with strikingly similar designs as theirs. Deloitte launched Dupe Killer, an AI-powered copycat detection solution to identify products that try to create cheap spin-offs using your design so you can take appropriate action to take them down.
Quality Control
Maintaining strict quality measures can be challenging for mass-produced clothes and other fashion items, creating a scope for faulty product shipments. AI can now be used to detect and eliminate product defects in real-time, ensuring only the highest-quality products reach customers. This advanced tech leverages machine learning algorithms and analyzes sensor data to detect defaults during production, enabling manufacturers to take prompt corrective actions. It eventually results in lesser customer complaints, lower product returns, and increased customer satisfaction.
Image Recognition and Search
Often, customers don’t know the product name they want but have similar product images as references. To date, users can only ‘type’ their query to find relevant product recommendations, but it has changed with AI’s visual search capability. eCommerce stores can integrate image recognition and search into their platform to boost sales. AI-powered visual search is powerful because it instantly lists products similar to the ones in the uploaded image, saving your search time and effort.
Chatbots and Virtual Assistants
Chatbots and virtual assistants backed by AI are improving customer experience by guiding them throughout their shopping journey. From suggesting the latest outfits for a festival to seeking workwear inspirations, chatbots and virtual assistants can be used for any guidance. You can use them as your 24*7 customer service agent, who can also transform into your personal stylist. People using chatbots on eCommerce websites are 3 times more likely to purchase.
Improved Fitting
Not everyone has the same body size, so the standard sizing guide may not always help users find the right-sized outfit on online shopping platforms. It affects brands in the form of lost sales, while it affects users by not helping them find the correct-sized clothing. Hence, many apparel designers and established brands are adopting AI solutions like Fit for Everybody.
Designers can use the data provided by this platform to make designs that are more aligned with customers’ precise measurements. Customers can also use the Fit for Everybody platform to learn how to take accurate body measurements for better shopping experiences.
Lowering Barrier to Entry
Entering the fashion industry as a designer isn’t economically viable for everyone. As a result, some of the most creative minds often don’t make it to this market. However, AI-platforms like Off/Script allow anyone to bring their design ideas into life. Anyone can use this platform to envision their unique style and clothing with simple prompts. If your design receives higher votes, it will be converted into tangible products ready to be sold.
