Artificial Intelligence: How This Technology is Revolutionizing The Fashion Industry's Supply Chain
- Amir Faraji
- Apr 8, 2023
- 4 min read
AI's Evolution
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a tool that is transforming the fashion industry in a variety of outlets. Whether it is optimizing supply chain management or increasing personalization for customers, AI has forced fashion and luxury brands to change the conservative nature of the way they conduct commerce and serve customers. Traditionally, luxury brands were always slow to adapt to the innovations of the business landscape, believing that the preservation of customary practices would persevere over these perceived novel ideas.
The Fashion Industry's COVID-19 Response
Since the start of the pandemic, these brands have been forced to curb this behavior in order to cater to their customers remotely while also retaining the personal experiences luxury retailers create when you shop in-store. With the digital evolution of the luxury business landscape, brands are also able to further optimize supply chain management with these AI-enabled tools. They allow for less inventory to be stored, for more accurate counts of which products they have on hand, and a more directed look into what consumers are buying.
Artificial Intelligence and Fashion Designers
AI being used in the process of fashion design has also raised the skepticism of designers. Design techniques and processes were things only a human could learn as tastes and sensibilities are innate attributes to us humans and can really never be replicated. Fashion retailers and designers fear that AI will homogenize the product offerings of a brand, and more so, customers will realize this when their favorite brands start releasing more primitive designs instead of being unique. The digital evolution of the fashion industry and the business of fashion has no breaks, and Artificial intelligence continues to shape the field every day.
AI and Augmented Reality's Role in Fashion Retail
Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, businesses across all industries have been forced to find a way to cater virtually to customers while retaining the positive aspects of in-store shopping. The merchandising involved in fashion retailers has shifted towards the virtual realm. Augmented reality technologies were formally adopted by a wide variety of brands to meet the demand of customers still wanting the experience of in-store shopping. This new technology is enabled by AI algorithms to make up for the fact that people were not able to try on clothes in real life, and so far, the results have been positive. Customers enjoy the customizing capabilities found in these innovations which have allowed brands to create a more immersive experience with the brands' offerings.
AI Optimizing Supply Chain Management
With AI-enabled augmented reality, brands allow their consumers to customize and tailor their preferences in regard to textures, materials, colors, and patterns. AR technology has also enabled customers to pick and choose which garments from a brand may pair well together to see if it fits their current style choices and body type. These new opportunities brought on by AI and augmented reality technologies allow fashion retailers and luxury brands to take customer personalization to another level. Because of the product tailoring enabled by AI, Luxury brands have a better scope of what their consumers want, and how much they should have on hand to meet consumer demand without having too much. Artificial Intelligence models are trained to evaluate stock and inventory historically, allowing for better decision-making going forward, and optimizing a brand's supply chain.
Artificial Intelligence and Skepticism From Fashion Design
Rightfully so, fashion designers are becoming increasingly skeptical of the new AI models being implemented in the fashion industry. Fashion brands are beginning to experiment with generative adversarial networks, which are artificial intelligence-enabled machine-learning programs used to create new designs. This program involves a “generator” which acts as the designer, using an algorithm to design clothes from resources the AI gathers. Then we have a “discriminator” that acts as a design critic which then seeks out design aspects that the “generator” has used from a dataset and discerns if the images generated are real or not. Through trial and error training, these two models optimize their functions, allowing users of this program to create original clothing. Although it seems like it's a seemingly easy way to generate clothing design fast, this program can be used alongside more detailed data like consumer preferences. By pairing a garment that was designed by a human and consumer preferences in regards to texture and materials, fashion designers can create garments with the qualities of their work and what consumers desire.
Concluding Thoughts
AI’s use in the world of the fashion industry is continuing to innovate how consumers are able to personalize their experiences with their favorite Luxury brands and retailers. The data recovered from these experiences further improve the brands' supply chain management as these AI-enabled tools allow them to gain more insight into their consumers and what they want. Businesses want to make sure they have the right product at the right time and at the right place for consumers to purchase, Artificial intelligence enables this and goes beyond by allowing them to personalize their preferences.
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