Will You Actually Shop With AI?

Is the future of fashion artificial intelligence dictating personal style?

A new study from Women’s Wear Daily and the Boston Consulting Group titled “How Gen Z and Gen Alpha Are Rewiring the Fashion Industry” may reveal just how deeply artificial intelligence is starting to influence how we shop and style ourselves. The report surveyed of over 9,000 U.S. consumers and analyzed about 50,000 social media posts to paint a picture that signals people fusing human taste with machine intelligence.

Weekly AI usage is higher among millennials and older consumers, at 58 percent, than among Gen Z and Gen Alpha, at 51 percent, according to the study. But younger users are the ones shopping with it. About 41 percent of Gen Z and Alpha respondents said they use AI to directly shop for fashion items, compared to 34 percent of older groups. And among high-spending young shoppers, AI use doubles.

“We are focused on showing up to reach audiences where they spend their time, like LLMs, TikTok, WeChat, YouTube, and gaming," Iris Langlois-Meurinne, global chief marketing officer at Ralph Lauren, said in the report. "We’ve also invested in AI to inspire customers and to improve discovery, such as with the launch of ’Ask Ralph,’ our new AI styling assistant in the Ralph Lauren mobile app.”

@stylemaxdes
PART 1 • Using AI for your personal style is a total cheat code 🚨 Save this and try them all! #AI #smartshopping #stylehacks . . @chatgpt @Google @Beni @Whatnot @Shopify
♬ original sound - Des | Style Strategist

According to the study, 90 percent of consumers use AI for trend research, product comparisons, and price checks at least a few times a month. Virtual try-ons, AI stylists, and predictive product suggestions are redefining what “good service” means. Saks.com has an AI-powered homepage that customizes what every visitor sees in real time. Google lets users upload a full-body photo to virtually “try on” clothes, effectively being your own model. And tools like Beni and Encore.ai are making resale and thrift shopping faster than ever.

Some fashion creators are already all in. TikTok user @fashunadict, who runs an online vintage shop, praised the AI site Encore.ai.

“You can literally use it like ChatGPT and that was amazing to me,” she said. “I’ve been to online vintage stores a lot for my business too and it can be so, so, so time-consuming, but this hack really helps me.”

Another creator, @stylemaxdes, told her followers that "the first thing you should be using AI for is to find inspiration and help style some of your outfits.”

She even listed a few of her favorite AI styling tools in her video.

Sure, AI-driven fashion has long been on the horizon, but what’s different now is its power to personalize has increased tenfold. It feels like little bots are everywhere, learning our tastes, habits, and moods, generating looks we didn’t know we wanted, and recommending what we’ll likely buy next.

This may sound sleek now, but it also raises a lot of questions that goes beyond convenience. When we let algorithms define what looks good on us, how much of our own style are we really giving up? And If fashion has always been a form of rebellion, what happens when our “rebellion” is predicted, packaged, and sold back to us?

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