Artificial Intelligence Part 9 - specific industry impacts - retail marketing, advertising and fashion

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Part 8 of this series on AI explored the impact of the new technology on the retail sector. This posting will further consider AI's effect on specific retail functions. 

Marketing and advertsiing in retail

AI has most impact with -

• Performance marketing: Google and Meta's advertising platforms are increasingly self-optimising with informed automation. The previous large teams of digital marketing specialists who managed bid strategies, audience targetting and creative testing are shrinking.  The platforms can carry out the operations that previously employees would carry out.
• Personalised communications: AI can and does generate individualised email, push notifications and SMS content at scale replacing or reducing human campaign teams.
• Market research and consumer insight: AI can synthesise customer data, social media listening, consumjer feedback and sales patterns into insight reports thus reducing analyst headcount.

Fashion retail specifically

Fashion sits at the intersection between the retails and creative indsutries making it doubly exposed -

• Trend forecasting: traditionally carried out by high-cost specialist agencies and in-house teams, AI can now analyse social media, runway coverage and sales data to predict trends with considerable accuracy.
• Design assistance: Ai tools can and do generate design concepts, colourway combinations and print patterns. This places junior design assistant roles under pressure in a very cost conscious industry.
• Fit and sizing: AI fit technology reduces return rates thus threatening the customer service infrastructure built around managing returns.
• Wholesale and buying: the buyer role which requires relationship-building with suppliers and market intuition is more protected from AI encroachment. The analytical support underneath these roles is much less so.

At this stage AI appplication in fashion is more of an augmenting role rather than displacement of jobs but increasingly this may change.