A lot of stories about the uses of artificial intelligence (AI) warn of the risks and how it might encroach on people’s personal lives. But those cautions can grow overblown, to the point that they forget to acknowledge the various benefits that it also can provide. Accordingly, a recent marketing push by Microsoft goes into great detail in describing how it has enabled a small fashion house called Bode deliver on its charming, comforting promise.
Bode has a unique selling proposition: It collects old quilts, then repurposes them into fashionable, one-of-a-kind coats. The various quilts combined to make a coat represent different styles, regional influences, and periods of time. The uniqueness of their provenance means that being able to tell the specific, unique story of each quilt is essential to their appeal.
But gathering and sharing all the details about each quilt that contributed to each coat represented an impossibly labor-intensive and time-consuming process. In most cases, the founder of the company was the only one with the requisite knowledge to assess each quilt and detail its features. Thus, she regularly had to take hours out of her day to respond to salespeople’s questions, before they could make a sale to a retailer considering whether to add the coats to its inventory or even to an individual consumer.
Seeing an opportunity, Microsoft offered to apply its AI capabilities to Bode’s production processes. The dedicated application has taken in images of thousands of quilts, to build a sort of database that enables it to identify particular patterns as indicative of a specific quilt design. For example, Log Cabin motifs were common in mid-century quilts, so the AI tool combines various pieces of input data to determine if a particular scrap being sewn into a new coat actually comes from an authentic Log Cabin quilt. With this information, the company’s salespeople can tell a compelling story about each coat they aim to sell.
It also helps with inventory efforts. Bode maintains a vast warehouse of antique quilts, which are relatively difficult to organize. By integrating the AI into its warehouse operations, Bode can quickly locate quilts that have certain characteristics that its customers seek in the coats they order.
This partnership notably did not involve any payment. That is, Microsoft did not pay Bode for the right to mention it in advertising for its AI, nor did Bode pay Microsoft to receive the technology. But both sides clearly benefit. Bode has vastly increased the efficiency of its production and sales processes, as well as creating more time for its founder to focus on other strategically important tasks. Microsoft has gained a means to advertise its AI using comforting images, involving a scrappy small business, an innovative fashion trend, and the cozy notion of handmade, antique quilts.
This partnership is not the only one between tech firms and fashion houses of course. For example, chatbots on Levi’s ecommerce sites encourage consumers to select certain styles; the machine learning company Edited offers fashion retailers reports about which styles, colors, and design features are trending. But the Microsoft–Bode connection is notable for the way it demonstrates how an analytical, cold, data-driven machine technique can make a comforting, nostalgic, personalized story come to life in a retail setting.
Discussion Question:
- How are fashion retailers using artificial intelligence?
Source: Jacob Gallagher, “Is Artificial Intelligence Good? Clothing Companies Say Yes,” The Wall Street Journal, March 16, 2020