The Tamesis
In 2025, the fashion industry’s collaboration with artificial intelligence will move from an experimental stage to an operational necessity. At the same time, the artificial intelligence industry has set its sights on the fashion field for the first time. This has given rise to the emerging practice of artificial intelligence optimization (AIO) within fashion marketing teams, as well as startups looking to become the go-to platform for fashion brand data analysis, AI-driven personalization, and advice on how to navigate this shift.
To make sure you don’t miss a beat in the era of trendy AI, we’ve launched a dedicated AI tracker with weekly updates on all the news and why it matters. Experts say that for fashion executives, tracking the rapid development of artificial intelligence is no longer optional but an important part of future-proofing their brands. As Karen Harvey, founder and CEO of Karen Harvey Consulting, told me in September: “Smart, fashionable CEOs are paying attention to this and taking a closer look at the best use cases for AI that don’t necessarily undermine morale or critical roles, but enable them to innovate. Most CEOs don’t have a great LLM education, but those companies that hire people to drive innovation through AI will, as we’ve seen in the pandemic, transform online through technology and not only survive, but thrive.”
In that spirit, here are the biggest AI moments of 2025 and why they (really) matter to fashion.
OpenAI, Google and Perplexity are rewriting the shopping model
Users of major AI chatbots have always had free reign over the questions they ask, but until mid-2025, turning to generative AI for clothing and accessory product discovery was a rather unsatisfactory experience.
Then in May, the companies behind major artificial intelligence platforms began an unprecedented push into shopping. The fashion industry has been asking who will be the “ChatGPT of shopping” in the age of artificial intelligence, and it turns out parent company OpenAI wants it to be ChatGPT itself.
The (now) for-profit company announced a series of updates to the ChatGPT shopping experience during the first week of May, including personalized recommendations, visual product details, and pricing comparisons between retailers and reviews when ChatGPT users search for fashion, beauty, home goods, or electronics. This personalization is further enhanced if users retain chat memories, and the company says its model will improve its recommendations over time as it begins to learn about your tastes. This data collection was reflected in the subsequent release in November of a new “Shopping Research” feature powered by the ChatGPT-5 model, which creates personalized buyer guides for logged-in users.
