The power of data was a key theme at the ASBCI conference with fashion industry being told it needs to “get its act together and capture good quality data” to ensure machine-learning models deliver value. Credit: ASBCI.

Major brands and retailers as well as AI experts and early adopters attended ASBCI conference to explore how new technologies, including Ai can be used to address the fashion industry’s most pressing challenges.

CEO and co-founder of Hyran Technologies Dr Ahmed Zaidi opened the conference with a cautionary note. He said: “AI amplifies existing systems. Is this the system we want to amplify?” He argued that the fashion industry’s current low-cost, high-volume model is broken, resulting in waste and dead stock due to unmanageable lead times.”

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Applying AI to this flawed system, he warned, would only sustain it rather than fix its core problems.

Conference’s key themes

ASBCI said this sentiment was echoed by other presenters who emphasised that AI alone cannot resolve long-standing industry issues like supply chain inefficiencies, overproduction, and poor-quality data.

As Alvanon’s COO Jason Wang explained: “Implementing a sizing AI tool won’t miraculously solve returns. If you want to leverage AI to reduce returns, start by looking under the hood and addressing the root cause of your issues, which is sizing inconsistency.”

Despite these challenges, ASBCI believes the event highlighted the growing sophistication of AI tools and their potential to revolutionise the fashion value chain when focused on specific pain points.

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The power of data was noted as a key theme, including the need for the industry to “get its act together and capture good quality data” to ensure machine-learning models deliver value.

Dressipi’s co-founder Sarah McVittie pointed out that “if the underlying data isn’t good, it’s garbage in, garbage out.”

She suggested brands and retailers focus on developing product-rich data to better understand why people buy and enable marketing on a much more personal level.

Other ASBCI speakers addressed AI’s impact on the people who are at the heart of the fashion industry with The Fashion Guild’s co-founder Peter Gallagher-Witham acknowledging concerns about job losses in the design process due to generative AI.

However, he noted the rapid evolution of these tools could be “amazing and liberating.”

ASBCI chair Dr Julie King described the event as “hugely” important, commending the candid and insightful presentations that articulated the multifaceted implications of AI adoption.

She concluded: “I am delighted that the ASBCI was able to host these discussions, on and off stage, between AI innovators, experts and early adopters and the brands and retailers these systems will impact most heavily. I want to thank all our speakers for their insightful and candid presentations that so clearly articulated the multifaceted and nuanced nature of AI adoption, and I’m sure this is a topic we will revisit at future events.”