AI Artificial Intelligence Invades The Clothing Industry, And A Large Number Of "Iron Rice Bowl" Is Laid Off.

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The application of this technology is becoming more and more extensive and extensive. With this technology, we can not only design garments, but also plan inventory accurately.

Now, some people even start to worry that artificial intelligence will completely replace the elite white-collar workers for high technology jobs.

Designer

First, AI was invaded.

In the work of designers who are famous for their creativity.

One of the best-selling products on the Myntra website in India is a T-shirt made of olive, yellow and blue stitching.

The design is accomplished by computer algorithm.

To be exact, the design of Myntra products is generated by two computer algorithms:

The first algorithm can generate random images.

The second algorithm first analyzes the image of clothing in Myntra's inventory, and then generates a similar design but not duplicated design.

Ananth Narayanan, chief executive of Myntra, says sales of clothing designed by these AI are growing at a rate of 100%.

The IBM Watson, an artificial intelligence system launched by the American technology giant IBM, has been widely applied in fashion design.

In 2016, the British designer brand Marchesa used IBM Watson technology to design an artificial smart dress for Czech supermodel Karolina Kurkova. Met Gala was stunning the entire fashion industry.

In the same year, Chinese actress Li Yuchun was dressed in the 11th anniversary celebration of Vogue.

It's an artificial smart dress designed by Chinese designer Zhang Shan Shan. It also uses IBM Watson's fashion big data resources.

Amazon, the US electricity supplier giant, launched artificial intelligence algorithms last year to boost its fashion business: designing clothing by analyzing a large number of images and imitating its style.

Such frontier design technology can not help but sigh, some of the "plagiarism" designers may soon be unemployed.

Buyer

In addition, many companies often use artificial intelligence to determine the stock of all kinds of clothing. Artificial intelligence can also predict consumer demand by reading the trends of fashion trends, so as to decide what to recommend to them.

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In the past, these jobs were determined by buyers and commodity planners, but now companies only need to determine the product mix according to the opinions of artificial intelligence, so that they can help achieve their sales goals.

The United States subscribe to Stitch Fix, a monthly fashion supplier, using artificial intelligence (AI) technology, stylists, and try out the "three in one" mode at home to solve the problem of volume, with its active users reaching 270 million.

First of all, Stitch Fix will recommend five fashion items according to user preferences and needs through its "Data Science + stylist" method, sending goods to the user's home in the form of monthly ordering boxes. The second step users try out at home, leaving a satisfactory free refund of goods that are not needed.

Relying on this way, Stitch Fix can record every user's feedback and personalized size requirements, so as to optimize the subsequent orders.

Similarly, Myntra's AI algorithm can also be based on similar design features.

Past sales to calculate the possibility of future merchandise sales.

In traditional retailers, buyers and commodity planners will be allocated to different types of clothing.

For example, some retailers have independent teams for knitted blouses and knitted blouses.

Buyers say that this subdivision helps them understand the trend of styles and colors intuitively.

But retailers who are skilled in using AI and big data tend to hire fewer buyers, partly because AI is less dependent on intuition than people.

Founded in 2012, the United States provides monthly subscription to fashion rental website Le Tote Tote to provide monthly rental fashion accessories services. Customers pay $59 a month, and they can rent at lease for one time.

And 2 accessories, users can also choose to buy these products at a price below 50% of retail price.

For such a platform with an annual turnover of hundreds of millions of dollars, the team responsible for purchasing all brand products has only 6 people, mainly due to the selection of these goods through the Le Tote matching algorithm.

The algorithm can determine whether to add its inventory according to the number of customers who put merchandise into their digital wish list, as well as online evaluation and recent purchase data.

The monthly ordering platform for men's fashion merchandise Bombfell relies on only one employee, Nathan Cates, to purchase all costumes and accessories.

The company has established algorithm tools and huge databases to help Nathan Cates predict clothing demand more accurately.

Limitations and future trends of AI

Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist Erik Brynjolfsson and Carnegie Mellon University computer scientist Tom Mitchell last year published their own views in the American Journal of Science: "automation and artificial intelligence will take on more work in the coming years.

Most of the affected manual work will be partially automated rather than completely disappearing. "

For example, AI can help companies conduct data analysis, but negotiations with suppliers usually require human beings to complete them.

Arti Zeighami, head of the Department of advanced analysis and artificial intelligence at H&M group, a fast fashion company in Sweden, said that the company is strengthening the team of buyers and commodity planners, and has no plans to replace them with AI.

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The Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts that in ten years, the employment of wholesale and retail buyers will drop by 2%, while that of all occupations will increase by 7%.

Some of these are due to the fact that less complex tasks and tasks will be replaced by automation (such as cataloguing inventory), or that some retailers do not have many requirements for buyers' purchases of goods, such as auto parts.

There is another area of work that can not be replaced by artificial intelligence - stylist.

Bombfell, Stitch Fix, and many of their competitors employ more and more human stylists. These stylists will adopt the artificial intelligence provided by the styling scheme, but ultimately they will decide what products to recommend.

This reflects the trend of combining artificial intelligence with human work: employing more human workers to provide corresponding services to customers with AI technology.

Chida Khatua, chief executive of EquBot, an investment vehicle research and development tool, predicts that even if the asset management industry will become more automated in the future, more financial advisors will be invited to help.

Ultimately, these tasks are difficult to achieve complete automation.

However, it is predicted that the wage level may be affected by the degree of automation.