Generated by artificial intelligence, images of imaginary Nike collaborative sneakers have been circulating on social media for weeks. But this is just one example of how AI is being used in fashion; its uses are already vast and valuable, spanning marketing, engineering and immersive experiences.

Thanks to new and increasingly human AI tools, AI has been generating buzz over the past month. Just last week, on March 20, image editor Adobe Firefly and graphic design platform Canva launched new AI technologies to support text-to-video and brand design, respectively. The launch of these technologies is further evidence of the usefulness of AI for visual content creation. And that's just the beginning.

Industry experts predict that AI tools will allow for faster, more seamless workflows, enabling workers in a variety of fields, including marketing, operations and engineering, to focus on more creative and problem-solving tasks. Roger Roberts, a partner at consulting firm McKinsey and co-author of the December 2022 Generative AI is here report, said, "This is one of the fastest growing and potentially most impactful trends we're seeing in technology today."

Hyper-personalization

Providing consumers with the next level of personalized products and experiences through e-commerce sites, targeted advertising and in-store experiences is one of the use cases that will benefit retailers. To date, personalization has largely been accomplished through micro-segmentation, where customers are grouped according to their interests, age group or location.

"You're going to see more automation, and if you want to deliver hyper-personalized services, you have to have automation," said Brian Long, CEO of Attentive, a personalized mobile messaging platform. On Monday, the company announced the launch of Attentive AI, a tool that allows brands to create complete multichannel campaigns using AI and validated content insights from 1.4 trillion Attentive data points. So far, one major retail brand using the tool in beta has reported a 148 percent increase in revenue.

"Many brands are using our generative image creation platform to generate a marketing image that leverages products from their catalog, paired with background and foreground images based on text prompts they enter. They then personalize the settings, brightness and other elements of the image," Long said. The artificial intelligence uses a database of images paired with text prompts to select the right setting elements. "In some cases, this will produce a production-ready image that they can send. In other cases, it can help them figure out what they're looking for in the final shot." Long said the tool allows brands to customize marketing images for different geographic areas at little to no cost.

Attentive AI can also create copy for promotional campaigns. "Our biggest challenge has always been getting our marketing copy done in a timely manner," says Jason Edwards, director of e-commerce for streetwear brand Hat Club. "The main surprise is that Attentive AI allows our copy to be close to final before we step in and finalize it. This will significantly reduce our content creation time, which in turn will allow us to run better campaigns and better segment our customers."

Visual marketing and series creation

Artificial intelligence can also address the visual marketing side of the equation. As brands open more stores, they need to express their brand image globally through visual merchandising, but also adapt it to each store. Due to cost and time constraints, chief visual merchandisers rarely lay out every store for a brand.

"If you can use artificial intelligence to train learning programs based on the instincts and intuition of your best virtual visual merchandisers, then you can bring their voice, style and capabilities to the door of each store each season," Roberts said.

In addition, Roberts points to the creative applications of AI for businesses. "Brands will be able to use generative AI technology to synthesize notes, sketches and ideas for collections. [......] With AI, these can be combined with operational and financial insights as well as marketing and marketing to create a collection at a price and profit that is sustainable for the brand and beneficial to the customer."

Levi Strauss & Co is reportedly using AI to showcase a wider range of diverse models on its website and other channels. "We are also using AI to enhance and differentiate our loyalty programs and provide personalized benefits to our members, which is helping us to achieve meaningful growth in enrollment, revenue and app registration," said Amy said Dr. Gershkoff Bolles, global head of digital and emerging technology strategy at Levi Strauss & Co. Personalized benefits, for example, include localized discounts based on popular products in the region. Since expanding its loyalty program in Europe last year, the brand has reached 5 million members worldwide.

Based on consumer data in specific markets, "artificial intelligence helps us provide personalized product recommendations on our website and mobile apps," Gershkoff Bolles said. "We are also using consumer mobility data to customize our stores to the unique needs and interests of local consumers and to open new stores where demand is greatest."

Finally, she also said AI can power Levi's promotions by analyzing which categories and products in inventory are most likely to benefit from a sale. This includes mid-season and end-of-season promotions, as well as Black Friday sales in the U.S. and Europe, she said, for example.

Web3 brands

Some Web3 brands are already applying artificial intelligence to the creative process. Charli Cohen, founder of two-year-old Web3 brand RTLSS, says her studio has used generative AI to speed up coding development efforts, allowing AI to create code that optimizes workflow. In addition, she is using generative AI to create user-generated content.

"We'll be integrating more AI over time this year," Cohen said. "Our next project will use AI to gamify the minting and post-minting experience. The UGC toolkit we are currently building will also include back-end processes such as verifying assets and managing intellectual property protection; they will be automated and enhanced by AI."

Artificial intelligence can be used to analyze NFT's blockchain transaction history to ensure that NFT is an original and not a copy. It can also analyze the content of NFT art to ensure it is original and does not violate copyright laws.

The brick-and-mortar fashion brand active in Web3, Tommy Hilfiger, is experimenting with artificial intelligence to engage customers in co-creation. Specifically, during Metaverse Fashion Week, consumers have the opportunity to use generative AI to design items in the brand's signature preppy style.

Fashion Shows

Even fashion shows, which have already undergone some degree of transformation, are set to change thanks to artificial intelligence. Matthew Drinkwater, head of emerging technology company Fashion Innovation Agency, has been experimenting with the uses of AI on the runway since leading an AI-focused course at the London College of Fashion during the epidemic. With students unable to present their final work in 2020, Drinkwater worked with the FIA to create a virtual runway show using archived performance footage and skeletal data from mobile models. The project was redesigned this year to include realistic models and artificial intelligence, and was released via LinkedIn on March 21.

"The early runways had a lot of manual labor work involved," Drinkwater said. "While that's not to say things are different, as using these tools requires a very specific skill set, creating that experience is much more manageable. Especially with the advent of AI tools such as text cues to video, which were introduced this week by AI platform Runway AI."

"The video component will take it to the next level of engagement. Images are obviously very cool, but when it's a video, people will stop and look and take their time," Long said.

For this year's runway project, FIA used the AI cueing tools Midjourney and Stable Diffusion. they took inspirational images from luxury brands, trained AI models to understand the looks, and then applied the looks to a specific male model to create a realistic video. drinkwater agrees. Roberts' view that the human element is more necessary in fashion's experimentation with creativity and artificial intelligence. However, he says that new opportunities for realism will help facilitate the mass adoption of digital fashion.

One caveat: AI is being implemented faster than the meta-universe

With metaverse, "a lot of things have to come together in the right way to create really great experiences. That's not the case with artificial intelligence." Roberts explains, "Existing software can add features that make it better. It doesn't require everyone to show up with a headset or create a whole new platform. That's why the hype cycle will be shorter, including going from everyone talking about AI, to people using AI, to AI having an impact related to CFOs."

As companies cut costs due to recession-related concerns, the use of AI can be used to cut labor costs. "Its bottom-line impact suggests that this is something that CTOs and CFOs need to be concerned about. In many cases, it will replace repetitive parts of human work and allow employees to work on projects faster - but it can't be a substitute."

Drinkwater added, "It's something we can put together, like our use of machine learning, artificial intelligence and immersive experiences, which will open up the next generation of immersive experiences."