Clothing is intermittent with our lifestyle globally and in the United States. As fashion is combining with technology, it is turning into a whole new ball game. Fashion and AI are joining hands to up the styling experience of people during 2024.
Some of the big fashion brands and apparel labels dictate the way we all dress up. Ultimately, what you wear and how you carry yourself becomes your fashion statement. That’s why the fashion industry has been one of the most thriving markets across the world.
AI is the latest kid on the block that is transforming fashion. It will be the biggest game-changer for the way people perceive fashion as a whole. That’s where expert AI developers can enable apparel manufacturers to smartly fulfill the fashion-centric needs of buyers.
The internet and social media platforms are buzzing with the newest fashion trends. People avidly love to follow them to look stylish. We are all part of it, and it’s an undeniable force to reckon with.
Statistics on the embrace of fashion by users and brands
Thanks to online shopping, from big retail giants to small brands, everyone is now directly accessible to consumers. The concept of eCommerce platforms is greatly influencing consumers worldwide and in the USA. Rather than just considering, they are outweighing online shopping in comparison to anything else.
In 2021, a study revealed that apparel market revenue worldwide was $1.55 trillion. By 2026, it is likely to reach $1.95 trillion. This denotes a CAGR of 4.79% in the forecast period (2022-2026).
The preference of people for shopping online is making retailers join the bandwagon instead of different ways of traditional shopping. For instance, Amazon bought the shoe retailer Zappos for $1.2 billion in 2009. Also, retail king Walmart and its competitor Target are partnering to improve the shopping experience.
The United States remained the largest apparel market with $317.6 billion in revenue through 2021. China was runner-up with $303.3 billion in revenue during the same year. The United Kingdom was third was $76.4 billion in 2021.
Intelligently transforming fashion with in-demand trends
Take the specific example of Zappos, a subsidiary retailer of Amazon. It sells shoes, clothes, and accessories online by leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning. The results are amazingly in favor of the company that has elevated the e-commerce experience for its users.
Zappos decided to broadly focus on two user pain points. What to get online? How to get accurate search results for what they are looking for?
Search queries can turn out a difficult thing to master. Especially, when what a user implies can differ from what the search engines understand. To address this problem, Zappos came up with an intelligent solution.
Zappos developed a model (a genetic algorithm) for getting customers what they need while maintaining efficiency. The algorithm is smartly designed to capture new keywords, to allow the system to expand on the search results. So, the users are more likely to find what they are looking for.
Fashion and AI combine to greatly influence apparel trends. This article is about how AI will continue to revolutionize the fashion industry. Here are some ways fashion and AI are changing the clothing experience in 2024.
- Understanding consumers with AI and ML
- Aiding the original apparel brands
- Boosting production with robotics
- Data-driven predictive mode
- It’s just the beginning for fashion
Moving forward, we look into the ways AI is changing the fashion scene everywhere through 2024.
Understanding consumers with AI and ML
It all starts with striking a conversation to make the sale. Deploying conversational assistants is a better way to enhance the online shopping experience of consumers around the world. Retail companies realize the indelible role of Google Assistant, Siri, Alexa, and Cortana in this regard.
AI-driven chatbots are helping users access the information they need at any time from their devices. You can integrate the same conversational interfaces through AI to facilitate users in getting similar products from your product line. Moreover, understanding consumer preferences is a huge plus point in deriving facts about user consumption patterns.
For example, with the new season approaching, or during the summer/winter vacation, people tend to buy more. So, the majority of customers usually prefer to check out the latest collections from their favorite online stores. What if virtual assistants were smart enough to understand your needs?
Nowadays, they can suggest items from your favorite chain of stores according to your previous selections or choices. That’s like someone read your mind and served you with exactly what you need. This concept of understanding customers through them is machine learning.
It’s the extension of AI allowing companies to gather data about user preferences, to showcase products as per user requirements. For instance, Stitch Fix has incorporated AI by offering an online personal styling service that is based on ML algorithms. This helps in better customer experiences and also helps clear out supply chain issues.
Aiding the original apparel brands
Computer vision enabled by machine learning is another popular use case of fashion and AI. This can help consumers in identifying the original versus copy or counterfeit products. Occasionally, during online shopping, consumers tend to get products that are not the original ones.
After all, Internet can turn out a funny place. Sometimes, you don’t place an order for the actual product online. Instead, you might be deceived into purchasing a second-rate replica of the same item.
This is where AI once again comes to the rescue. Computer vision driven by ML helps you spot fakes and counterfeit products. This is a rather tricky subject as identifying the fake from the original can be a difficult feat.
But when it comes to AI, there is no other “force” that can do the spotting with so much precision. High-end brands like Burberry, Gucci, and BVLGARI are victims of sales of copy versions of their latest bags and sunglasses. AI technology empowers these businesses in enabling consumers to identify the original products which also helps them save revenue.
Boosting production with robotics
Let’s go back to the basics of fashion products. Apparels, bags, and shoes — all of them have one thing in common: cutting and sewing. What is a better way to facilitate mass production?
You can facilitate large-scale manufacturing of fashion items by incorporating robots to take part in it. However, these robots or machines are not doing one specific manual task. In its place, AI powers them to cater to different styling and stitching trends.
Thus, emerges a new market niche for building powerful AI programs, capable of driving machines to the best way forward. A lot of companies are investing in this domain to aid in producing garments that are sewn by robotics technology. The apparel sector is constantly changing, and consumers are always wanting to try out the latest fashion trends.
During every season, fashion brands have to stock new apparel items in shops and outlets for people to purchase. However, analyzing the user demand for each season is very important. The manufacturing plants must precisely predict the total amount of apparel to make.
So that companies don’t face losses in terms of the procurement of all the items. Likewise, any items that don’t get sold will ultimately return to the warehouse. Again, this is an overhead that apparel brands must avoid.
AI-built prediction can result in 20 to 50% fewer errors in estimating the demand for products. Even, it allows efficiency in manufacturing processes. Brands also avail the benefit of greater error detection in the end-to-end production process.
Data-driven predictive mode
The best part about AI is data. The more data points you have, the easier it becomes to be in a predictive model and lead the way. That’s why AI-centered technology is majorly data-driven.
Apparel companies are taking great pains to collect substantial amounts of user data. So that they can provide high-street fashion with wider accessibility. That too while keeping a keen eye on sustainability and revenue margins
Fashion brands like H&M and Tommy Hilfiger are also integrating AI technology. H&M built its own AI department to create AI algorithms for understanding the science between their raw materials in 2018. Now, it rightly applies the apparel demand and supplies; ensuring implementation of waste management in its manufacturing plants.
With the recent emphasis on a greener world, companies are pledging to create environment-friendly solutions for everyone. AI also greatly helps in understanding the volume of stocks and the unpredictable nature of consumer tastes. Walmart uses AI for showcasing only the most interesting products to consumers.
So that the right sales can happen at the right time. It’s all about understanding consumers and what drives them to buy a certain product at a certain time. If needs are comfortably met, then there is no stopping what companies can sell to consumers.
It’s just the beginning for fashion
Apparel brands are using AI technology with various innovative ideas. For example, matchesfashion.com uses personalized 3D avatars to help users try on samples that best fit their body size. Similarly, a B2B solution by the name of Virtusize utilizes a comparable concept.
This way, users can generate avatars based on their body physique. It enables users to try out outfits and see what essentially suits them. Revolutions like metaverse will take such trends in fashion to the next level.
A new feature of Snap (the mastermind behind Snapchat) Screenshop enables image input to help users with better searching. So that users can get the best possible match for what they need. Instead of text-based search, it’s AI figuring out the image you’ve input to give you the closest possible search results.
It doesn’t end here though. Now, even virtual models have become quite a thing with The Diigitals emerging as the world’s first all-digital modeling agency. Acne Studios has launched its collection using AI for designing new textiles through off-cut fabrics.
Conclusion
Modern technologies like AI, ML, and AR/VR are driving the fashion market universally and in the US. The possibilities seem to be endless with AI continuously dominating how fashion will aspire for great product ideation. Fashion has always been a torch-bearer for out-of-the-box trends and creativity that extends the norms.
Today, we are on the brink of something exciting. With AI technology backing fashion up, the frontier for this innovation is superseding expectations. That too with a greater emphasis on customization, and eco-friendly solutions.
The apparel industry is employing futuristic ideas that spark ingenuity and give a wider edge for creativity. Consequently, fashion brands have a broad margin to explore newer horizons. All of us consumers are happily embracing the AI-led fashion that comes our way.
Are you looking to develop an AI-driven fashion app or solution? We can help you with what you need. Hence, contact us now to explore your options to take your apparel business to the next level.
