The fashion industry, one of the largest sectors that contributes to around 2% of the global GDP is set to revolutionize using Artificial Intelligence. AI is capable of providing fashion brands with intelligence. Fashion companies can leverage the benefits of AI to gain valuable insights about the changing fashion trends, purchase patterns as well as assist in inventory management. Thus the use of AI-driven technology in the fashion industry will necessarily bring a significant change in its business operations by adding intelligence in the decision-making process and its value chain. The use of AI will help businesses in:
- It ensures the proper documentation of the sales and returns records thereby enhancing productivity.
- Helps fashion retailers to keep track of their inventory by analyzing the available products in the stores and incoming stocks from the warehouses.
- The inventory data analyzed by AI helps fashion companies to stock high demand products so that sales are not lost.
A French MNC, Capgemini has reported that by the end of 2022, the global annual spending on Artificial Intelligence by fashion retailers will be close to US$7.3 billion and AI has the potential to help them save around US$340 billion annually by the optimization of operations. Global fashion retailer, H&M has leveraged the benefit of AI in its business by organizing and allocating the unsold stocks to those stores of peak demand, thereby reducing the need for discounted sales. They are also able to optimize the supply chain and inventory.
The major factor that triggers the growth of AI in the fashion industry is the demand for hyper-personalization such as the ability to customize the products according to the individual’s taste and preferences, or the customers’ shopping experience and so on. A UK based online fashion retailer Asos launched an AI-driven tool Fit Assistance, to help customers fit the perfect fit. The new AI-powered tool provides recommendations to shoppers based on their age, weight, height, and body measurements. It also reveals the percentage of shoppers satisfied with the recommendations. Thus the deployment of AI helps fashion retailers to mitigate the cost of free returns policy which costs billions of dollars. AI enables retailers to thrive in this digital era by providing enhanced customer experiences.
