The Vogue Business AI Tracker

The Vogue Business AI Tracker keeps a record of the most important AI developments that will influence our industry and our world, each week. From venture capital investments and startup launches to product drops and regulatory updates, we’ll make sure you never miss a beat when it comes to the AI news that matters.

Oct 13, 2026

The news: Pinterest launches AI-powered beauty guides.

Why it matters: Pinterest has launched Beauty Guides, an AI-powered feature that analyzes hair and nail Pins to generate personalized salon instructions, at-home tutorials and product recommendations. Available first to US iOS users, Pinterest says the tool aims to close the gap between discovering a beauty look and recreating it.

While competitors like Google Lens already use AI-powered visual search to identify and shop products, Pinterest is extending the concept to practical beauty advice. The move reflects a broader shift from AI-powered discovery to AI-assisted decision-making, while helping Pinterest turn its vast repository of visual inspiration into greater shopping intent and potential commercial opportunities for beauty brands. It also builds on the platform’s recent push into visual search advertising, giving it more ways to connect inspiration with purchases.

The news: OpenAI releases virtual try-on in ChatGPT.

Why it matters: OpenAI is introducing AI-powered virtual try-on and product-saving features to ChatGPT, deepening its push into fashion e-commerce. Users can upload photos of themselves to visualize how clothing and accessories might look on, while a new Favorites feature lets them save products and try-on images for later.

Powered by ChatGPT Images 2.5 (OpenAI’s latest image generator, released in September) the tools will roll out globally across consumer plans, with purchases still completed on merchants’ websites. The launch puts ChatGPT in more direct competition with visual shopping platforms such as Google and Pinterest, as AI assistants evolve from product discovery tools into personalized shopping destinations.

For fashion brands, it raises the prospect of ChatGPT becoming an increasingly influential touchpoint in the customer journey. Luxury brands have been hesitant to adopt virtual try-on on their own channels, largely because the tech hasn’t met their visual standards — but the latest advances in AI are rapidly improving the realism of these digital models.

The news: TikTok launches AI shopping assistant and one-click checkout.

Why it matters: TikTok has launched an AI-powered shopping assistant that provides personalized product guidance, answering questions about sizing, availability and delivery directly within the app. Alongside this, a new one-click checkout feature allows users to purchase directly from brands on their FYP, without leaving TikTok.

Developed in partnership with commerce and payment providers including Shopify, Salesforce and Stripe, the features mark an expansion beyond TikTok Shop’s existing marketplace model, more deeply embedding AI-assisted shopping and direct brand purchases into the social platform. Its aim is to create a more seamless journey from inspiration through discovery, to purchase.

The launch comes against a wider shift towards AI-powered, end-to-end shopping experiences, alongside Meta’s Muse AI agent, Pinterest’s growing shopping investment, and ChatGPT’s new virtual try-on capabilities. For brands, the challenge becomes how to surface in these AI products, where checkout is handled outside their own channels.

Oct 6, 2026

The news: Trump orders the US government to stop calling AI “AI”.

Why it matters: President Donald Trump has signed an executive order instructing the US government to replace “artificial intelligence” and “AI” with “super intelligence” and “SI” across all official communications and policy documents, arguing that the new terminology better reflects the tech’s rapidly advancing capabilities and economic potential. The language notably echoes Mark Zuckerberg’s vision of “personal super intelligence”, which he made central to Meta’s AI strategy last year.

The rebrand comes amid a much bigger debate over who should be responsible for keeping increasingly powerful AI systems in check. Ahead of signing the executive order, Trump convened some of the industry’s most powerful figures — including Meta’s Zuckerberg, xAI’s Elon Musk, Google’s Sundar Pichai, Nvidia’s Jensen Huang, OpenAI’s Greg Brockman, and Anthropic’s Dario Amodei — to sign a voluntary AI safety accord.

The accord puts the onus on companies to develop internal safeguards, subject their systems to independent audits and provide board-level oversight, in line with the Trump administration’s preferred “self-policing” versus a coordinated slowdown. Amodei has been among the most vocal advocates for slowing down, while OpenAI, Google DeepMind, Microsoft and xAI have backed calls for greater restraint.

The bosses at Anthropic, Google, xAI, Meta, OpenAI, and Nvidia all signed Trump’s voluntary accord.

The news: Oura delays IPO, citing market uncertainty.

Why it matters: Smart ring maker Oura has postponed its hotly anticipated IPO, citing “uncertainty in the IPO market” despite strong demand for its wearables offering. The company had been targeting a valuation of as much as $14 billion, and expected to raise as much as $2.2 billion in the public listing.

The timing points to a broader AI-driven shake-up in public markets. Investors are increasingly scrutinizing the vast cash being poured into AI infrastructure and lofty tech valuations, even as prospective mega-listings from AI companies such as Anthropic and OpenAI threaten to command an outsized share of investor attention and capital. Oura’s delay offers an early glimpse of the potential divide between the tech companies attracting extraordinary sums and those competing for what’s left.

Plus, as of last week, OpenAI announced that it won’t be joining the IPO rush this year. CEO Sam Altman has said going public now would be ill-advised given the safety work still ahead.

Sept 29, 2026

The news: Meta unveils kawaii-coded wearable pendant to house its Muse AI assistant.

Why it matters: Just when we thought Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg had finished announcing his slew of smart glasses and AI updates during the annual connect conference, there was “just one more thing”: another wearable device designed to house its new Muse AI agent, the Muse Charm. It’s a tamagotchi-esque, palm-sized totem on a looped cord designed to attach to keychains or fit into the wearer’s pocket.

The Muse Charm has a small screen to display the user’s selected Muse AI avatar. It’s unlocked via fingerprint and can be spoken into for instructing their agent to carry out tasks. Zuckerberg is still “finalizing” the components, but promised that the device will be ready to ship before the holidays.

The Muse Charm is Meta’s latest attempt at a new form factor designed to get its AI agent into the hands of as many consumers as possible. “We packed the whole muse experience, including the real-time voice and avatar stack into something that fits on a key chain and is always available to talk to,” Zuckerberg said. “So if you’re not wearing glasses, this is going to be by far the fastest way to talk to your Muse and show [it] what’s going on around you.”

It feeds into Zuckerberg’s promise of “personal superintelligence”, and may offer itself as a successor to the smartphone.

The news: OpenAI pauses training of new AI models, following further AI agent hacks.

Why it matters: ChatGPT maker OpenAI has paused training of its new AI models, just hours after disclosing that its AI agents had gone “rogue”. Over the summer, there were reportedly dozens of incidents where OpenAI models unexpectedly breached their system guardrails and compromised organizations’ security controls, including the US government’s.

In July, OpenAI revealed its autonomous AI agents, developed during safety trials, escaped their testing sandbox, accessed the internet, and independently hacked the startup Hugging Face back in July — the first example of an major AI-driven attack that moved faster than the humans trying to contain it.

“We have not been as fast as we would have liked, but we are trying to balance our desire for transparency with gaining a clear understanding from petabytes [1 million gigabytes] of agent activity logs [digital diaries of what the agents do], and working with impacted organizations,” CEO Sam Altman said in a post on X. “Hugging Face is still the most severe event we’ve seen.” He added that OpenAI will “be as transparent as can be”, while hinting that OpenAI’s agents had also discovered vulnerabilities in “other companies” like rivals, which he said would “be their call to disclose or not”.

OpenAI said it will resume training of its most capable AI models only when “confident that we have additional safeguards and alignment improvements in place, which we are working on now,” a spokesperson told Vogue Business. “People want to know AI is being developed safely, and that starts with what companies like ours do. This is not the first time we have hit pause to take such measures, nor do we expect it to be the last as capabilities continue to advance.”

Sept 22, 2026

The news: OpenAI and Anthropic staff question how to put AI slowdown pledges into practice.

Why it matters: Employees at OpenAI and Anthropic are questioning how their leaders’ recent calls to slow the development of increasingly powerful AI models will work in practice. According to the Financial Times, staff were blindsided by the proposals, which include bringing independent evaluators inside the AI labs to scrutinize models and safety practices, leaving them to grapple with questions around how much access outsiders will receive and IP protection.

The uncertainty highlights the gap between the growing consensus that safety measures need to keep pace with rapidly advancing AI models, as well as the practicalities of implementing those commitments. It also raises questions over whether last week’s unusual show of agreement between AI leaders will translate into meaningful change around model development and release.

Sept 15, 2026

The news: AI’s biggest rivals unite behind calls to slow development.

Why it matters: Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei is calling on the AI industry to slow the rate at which its most powerful models become more capable, warning that safety measures are struggling to keep pace. His proposals include embedding independent evaluators inside AI labs, greater coordination on safety standards, and international cooperation. Anthropic has committed to bringing independent evaluators inside the company, giving them employee-like access to scrutinize the safety of its models.

What’s more, some of Amodei’s biggest rivals are backing him. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman said the tech company would also introduce independent evaluators, while xAI’s Elon Musk endorsed Amodei’s call and Google DeepMind’s Demis Hassabis said the proposal was “heading in the right direction”. The rare consensus comes after a series of AI safety incidents and high-profile researcher resignations intensified concerns over increasingly autonomous systems.

What’s yet unclear is whether the industry’s newfound agreement will translate into a meaningful slowdown, or how the biggest AI companies reconcile it with the fierce commercial race to build more powerful models.

The news: Estée Lauder Companies partners with AI startup to boost brands in search.

Why it matters: Estée Lauder Companies (ELC) is partnering with AI marketing platform Profound to track and improve how its portfolio of beauty brands appears across generative AI platforms like ChatGPT and Gemini. It comes as more fashion and beauty groups invest in recalibrating their marketing strategies to prioritize generative engine optimization (GEO); ELC said the strategic partnership marks a move to “operationalize GEO and AI marketing at scale”.

Profound’s software will show ELC when — and how — its brands surface or become recommended by AI assistants, and identify opportunities to improve their visibility and accuracy. The beauty conglomerate will then use Profound’s agentic tools to optimize product pages, blogs, social media, and other components so that information is easier for LLMs to comprehend and pick up.

“The way people discover beauty is being rewritten, and we intend to shape that shift rather than react to it,” said ELC global chief digital and marketing officer Aude Gandon, adding that the sector is undergoing an “industry-wide transition”, as consumers increasingly use AI for product discovery and recommendations.

The news: Daydream adds Siri and camera roll search via Apple’s new iOS 27.

Why it matters: AI shopping platform Daydream is integrating deeper into the iPhone with the launch of two features built on Apple’s new iOS 27 tools. Users can now find shoppable matches for clothing in photos saved to their camera rolls, or ask Siri to search Daydream’s catalog using conversational prompts without opening the app. Daydream is one of the early co-developers of tools built with Apple’s latest on-device AI foundation models, using its new image-context capabilities.

Daydream says the launch gives it access to shopping intent at the point of inspiration, rather than requiring consumers to begin their search on a retailer or marketplace. The company now has more than 1.5 million shoppers, as well as 3 million products spanning 10,000 brands and 325 retailers.

Sept 1, 2026

The news: US court rules Pentagon’s blacklisting of Anthropic as unlawful.

Why it matters: Anthropic has won a significant legal battle against the US government, after a federal judge ruled that the Pentagon acted unlawfully when referring to the Claude maker as a national security supply chain risk. The dispute came after Anthropic refused to remove safeguards preventing its AI from being used for autonomous weapons and domestic mass surveillance, leading to federal agencies and military contractors boycotting any business with the company.

In her ruling, US District Judge Rita Lin found the government’s measures to be “illegal and baseless”, and amounted to unlawful retaliation. The Pentagon could appeal the decision.

The case reinforces growing tensions emerging around who decides what an AI system can and can’t be used for — a risk for businesses using enterprise AI. As fashion and beauty companies increasingly build workflows and consumer tools on models from Anthropic, OpenAI and Google, they are also inheriting the safeguards, use policies and geopolitical exposure of those providers.

August 25, 2026

The news: Amazon faces lawsuit over training AI models on video content from Twitch.

Why it matters: The class action lawsuit against Amazon has been brought on behalf of millions of Twitch streamers who allege the platform’s parent company, Amazon, used their content to train AI without permission or compensation. According to the BBC, reportedly 215 million hours of content was generated via the platform in the first few months of 2026 alone. While the use of these videos was only announced in August, allowing people to then opt-out of having their data used this way, it is unclear how long Amazon was harnessing this content.

The legal proceedings tie into concerns around the ownership of content that’s hosted on Big Tech-owned platforms, as well as its illicit commercial usage that leaves creators without compensation or rights. Twitch and Amazon are yet to comment on the proceedings.

The news: Alibaba raises £7.5 billion to invest in AI.

Why it matters: Chinese retail and tech giant Alibaba is issuing 710 million shares in Hong Kong at around £10.54 each, with expectations of raising roughly £7.5 billion. The plan for the proceeds is to develop its “full stack” AI capabilities, including new models, chips, and computing infrastructure.

The move comes days after Alibaba’s quarterly profits reportedly plunged 75% off of rising AI infrastructure spend, as the business aims to capitalize on the strong sentiment for tech companies in China’s stock market, offset its slowing e-commerce business, and power proprietary tech such as its Qwen AI models.

Alibaba has ramped up its AI investment since being blacklisted by the Pentagon in June, alongside other Chinese companies deemed as a national security risk to the US. The company is potentially looking to compete with Silicon Valley’s suite of AI makers, while shifting gears to tech to be able to maximize and support its fashion operations in-house.

The news: Landmark child privacy lawsuit against Meta kicks off in the US.

Why it matters: On August 18, the trial commenced for a lawsuit filed in 2023, in which 29 US states claim Meta violated multiple federal and state laws protecting children. Beyond the potential billions of dollars Meta may have to pay out if found liable, the states are demanding the tech leader make changes to its Instagram and Facebook models, such as removing like counts and the “infinite scroll”.

If Meta loses, the way young people experience social media may be forced to change. Through features designed to keep consumers using the platforms as long and as often as possible, the states believes Meta “chose to exploit” young people to grow its user base and ultimately its business. The trial poses questions for brands who utilize these social platforms for monetization and brand-building purposes — in terms of both accountability, as well as having to recalibrate their partnerships with social media and their methods for reaching younger audiences.

August 18, 2026

The news: Phia faces fresh scrutiny over affiliate attribution.

Why it matters: Bloomberg has continued its investigation into AI shopping app Phia, alleging that founders Phoebe Gates and Sophia Kianni were aware for months that the company’s browser extension was taking affiliate credit for purchases it did not meaningfully influence — a practice known as “cookie stuffing”. This is despite earlier public statements from the startup suggesting the issue had only come to light after Bloomberg contacted the company. According to internal Slack messages and revenue data reviewed by Bloomberg, the disputed features accounted for roughly 51% of Phia’s merchandise value in June, and average daily revenue reportedly fell sharply after they were disabled in July. Phia has since said it is reviewing every transaction, reversing any incorrectly attributed sales, and is appointing a head of compliance, while disputing Bloomberg’s characterisation of the issue.

Phia is rapidly becoming a case study in the governance risks surrounding AI-powered shopping agents and browser extensions. As luxury brands increasingly experiment with AI commerce assistants and affiliate-driven discovery, the controversy highlights the need for rigorous oversight of attribution, consent and partner incentives. It also raises broader questions about how AI shopping tools should earn commissions and the level of transparency brands should expect from technology partners across AI and affiliate marketing.

The news: Anthropic investors eye a record $2 trillion IPO.

Why it matters: Anthropic investors are modelling an IPO worth more than $2 trillion, which would make it the largest public listing in history if achieved. According to the Financial Times, expectations are being fueled by the Claude maker’s rapid enterprise revenue growth and confidence that demand for frontier AI models will continue to accelerate. Anthropic has not confirmed a target valuation and remains in its quiet period ahead of a potential October listing, meaning the figure reflects investor expectations rather than company guidance.

A $2 trillion listing would reinforce the dominance of a handful of AI infrastructure companies that increasingly underpin the tools luxury brands rely on. It also adds fresh momentum to the AI bubble, characterized by the sector’s frothy valuations, underscoring that investor appetite for the biggest commercial AI models remains strong, despite growing questions over sustainability and returns.

August 11, 2026

The news: Mark Zuckerberg releases AI manifesto, unveiling “open source” Meta AI model, Muse Glimmer.

Why it matters: Alongside the release of Muse Glimmer, a new lightweight version of Meta’s most powerful AI model, which is “open source” (freely available to outside developers), CEO Mark Zuckerberg wrote a 6,500-word consumer-facing manifesto titled The Future Is for Everyone: The Path to a Positive AI Future.

As well as pitching the company’s plan to release free AI models to “billions of people”, Zuckerberg’s essay positions the tech as a tool for creativity, entrepreneurship and self-expression rather than replacement. By outlining an optimistic vision of consumer AI alongside its open model strategy, the company is attempting to differentiate itself from rival companies like Anthropic and OpenAI, who have warned that AI is dangerous and should be tightly controlled.

In a direct comment on rivals’ AI strategies, Zuckerberg wrote: “Meta is the company primarily focused on building personal superintelligence for everyone. Most other labs are focused on building AI for companies, governments, or other institutions, so if those labs lead, then the balance of power will favor larger institutions over individuals.”

It’s a move that speaks to broader consumer fears of AI’s impact on livelihoods — both from an economic standpoint and in terms of creativity. Rather than framing AI around productivity or cost savings, Meta is increasingly positioning it as a creative collaborator.

August 4, 2026

The news: Daydream launches B2B arm for AI fashion search.

Why it matters: AI shopping startup Daydream is expanding beyond its consumer app with Powered by Daydream, a white-label platform allowing fashion brands to embed its conversational and visual AI search directly into their e-commerce sites. Launch partners include Staud, Alice + Olivia and Cult Mia, with more than 25 additional brands signed on, according to the startup.

It joins a growing cottage industry of startups promising to “AI-proof” brand websites, betting that retailers would rather rent AI capabilities than surrender customer relationships to a new generation of shopping apps. At the same time, as the market for consumer-facing AI shopping apps becomes increasingly crowded, with many still struggling to prove shoppers want a new place to begin their purchasing journeys, it’s a notable pivot.

July 28, 2026

The news: Salesforce invests in Brunello Cucinelli’s AI platform, Callimacus.

Why it matters: Solomei AI, the Brunello Cucinelli-owned tech company behind Callimacus, has entered into an investment agreement with CRM giant Salesforce. The AI-powered platform, which launched in January 2026 via the Brunello Cucinelli e-commerce site, aims to position itself as the next generation of pageless websites and applications — rather than guiding customers through a standardized site experience, Callimacus’s AI agents are designed to recognize each visitor’s intent and generate a personalized shopping navigation in real time.

The Salesforce funding will support the push for Callimacus to be adopted by businesses across Europe and North America, and, if the transaction goes through, pending authorization by the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, the CRM firm will join seed shareholders such as the Cucinelli family holding company, Foro delle Arti.

The Callimacus system aims to offer businesses a new way to engage customers in the agentic age, beyond static e-commerce sites. Its majority ownership by Italian luxury label Brunello is also significant, considering its founder’s long-term interest in AI, as well as its popularity among the Silicon Valley tech set — the growing relationship between tech and fashion is now well-documented.

The news: Prime Minister Andy Burnham appoints the UK’s first AI minister.

Why it matters: Andy Burnham, who was officially named Prime Minister on July 20, appointed Kanishka Narayan MP as the UK’s first AI minister in one of his initial moves. The decision represents the acknowledgement of AI as a vital policy challenge for the government, considering the risk to British jobs, health and safety concerns, as well as the uncertainty surrounding the impact the tech might have on economic structures. It also comes off the back of Burnham’s belief that nations have a limited window to take control of AI and shape its impact on the country. However, some say the move reflects Britain’s efforts to join the global AI race, attempting to catch up with the likes of the US and China.

July 21, 2026

The news: OpenAI’s new merch line draws less-than-enthusiastic response.

Why it matters: OpenAI has opened its Supply Co. merchandise line to the public, selling branded T-shirts, hoodies, caps and accessories that it describes as “physical expressions of research energy”. Previously reserved for employees, the collection borrows from the language of limited-edition fashion drops, complete with archival pieces and collectible ephemera.

The internet, however, is largely unconvinced. Across social media, many are questioning who the products are for and likening the launch to Silicon Valley’s latest attempt to become a lifestyle brand, with critics taking aim at everything from the pricing to the aesthetic.

It’s the latest in a string of attempts by Big Tech and AI companies to borrow cues from fashion — whether that be merch, Palantir’s workwear jackets, or Meta’s AI smart glasses — in an effort to transform themselves from software providers into cultural brands.

The news: Apple escalates dispute with OpenAI over ex-employees.

Why it matters: Apple has intensified its dispute with OpenAI by contacting dozens of former employees now working at the ChatGPT parent company, asking them to retain documents that could become evidence in an ongoing trade secrets case. The move follows the lawsuit Apple filed last week, which alleges confidential information relating to its future hardware projects may have been taken by former staff who later joined OpenAI’s expanding devices business. OpenAI has rejected the allegations, saying it neither sought nor benefited from Apple’s proprietary information.

The fierce competition for experienced hardware talent reflects a broader shift, as AI companies look beyond chatbots towards consumer devices. Both Apple and OpenAI are reportedly developing AI-powered smart glasses, a category that could take wearable AI mainstream.

Apple enters that race with decades of experience building consumer hardware and one of the world’s most recognizable design identities. Meanwhile, OpenAI is trying to establish those credentials more rapidly through its partnership with Jony Ive and the acquisition of his AI firm, io.

July 14, 2026

The news: Meta discontinues controversial Instagram AI feature for new AI image generator.

Why it matters: Meta has withdrawn a newly launched feature within its Muse Image model that enabled users to generate AI images by referencing public Instagram accounts, just days after introducing it as part of its latest suite of generative AI tools. Meta announced it was scrapping the feature on Friday, after it received widespread backlash online from consumers concerned about the privacy implications of the new feature, which allowed photos shared on public instagram accounts to be fed into Meta’s new AI image generator as references, without an explicit opt-in process. “Our intent was to provide a useful creative tool and to give people control over whether their public content could be referenced in this way,” Meta wrote in a blog post announcing the change. “We've heard the feedback that this feature missed the mark, so it's no longer available.”

Meta’s wider Muse Image text-to-image model, developed by its Meta Superintelligence Labs division and integrated across Meta AI, is still in place. The model enables users to generate images from text prompts, edit existing photos, apply visual effects, create custom graphics and produce creative assets within Meta's apps ecosystem, including Instagram, WhatsApp and Facebook. It’s part of Meta’s broader strategy to embed generative AI directly into its consumer products, rather than offering it as a standalone creative tool.

This is yet another example of the growing tensions between AI companies, consumers and creatives, when it comes to creative ownership and privacy. As image-generation tools become embedded within social platforms, it’s no longer just a question of institutions, copyright and training data, but consent, likeness and artistic control. It also reinforces the need for clearer governance around how visual identities can be referenced or repurposed by AI. The rapid reversal also suggests that trust and transparency are becoming more and more important as consumer-facing AI tools move into the mainstream.

The news: Meta tests always-on “super sensing” smart glasses, FT reports.

Why it matters: Meta is testing a new line of smart glasses that would continuously record audio while taking photos every few seconds, according to the Financial Times, which cited multiple people familiar with the matter. The idea behind the new glasses, according to the reports, is that wearers could then ask the Meta AI model that’s built into the glasses what they have seen or heard, or to recall part of their day.

Currently, Meta’s AI smart glasses feature a small LED light that flashes white when the wearer takes a photo and stays steadily lit when the wearer records a video. In their current guise, Meta’s glasses have come up against intense consumer backlash online for their ability to capture photos and videos of bystanders in a much more covert manner than smartphones. Meta has been recruiting fashion and celebrity talent — including Kylie Jenner, the new face of the company’s most recent smart glasses design — but consumers are increasingly pushing back against smart glasses as the ultimate surveillance form factor. “Always on” recording would likely intensify these concerns. As consumers increasingly prioritize privacy, experts say removing the camera altogether is perhaps the secret to smart glasses reaching mainstream adoption — the opposite of these newly reported plans.

The news: Phia shopping app accused of claiming unearned affiliate sales.

Why it matters: AI shopping app Phia is facing criticism after an investigation by Bloomberg found that it improperly collected affiliate commissions on online purchases. The claims center on the app’s browser extension, which is alleged to have replaced existing rival affiliate tracking links with its own during checkout, allowing it to receive credit for sales it may not have originated. Phia has said the behavior resulted from a technical issue that has since been resolved. Given that Phia’s business centers on affiliate revenue, the allegations throw the startup’s credibility into question. They’ve also prompted renewed scrutiny of affiliate tracking practices across AI-powered shopping tools.

The allegations come just 14 months since Phia’s inception, and just over a month after the startup raised a $35.5 million oversubscribed Series A funding round led by Notable Capital, Khosla Venture and Kleiner Perkins, and joined by tech names like OpenAI’s Charles Porch and Robinhood founder Vladimir Tenev, and Venmo founder Iqram Magdon-Ismail. Phia’s first round counted notable backers Hailey Bieber, Kris Jenner, Sheryl Sandberg, and Sara Blakely. Vogue Business has contacted Phia for comment.

Fashion brands increasingly rely on affiliates — including publishers, creators and shopping platforms — to influence purchasing decisions, with commissions tied to accurate attribution. If AI shopping assistants increasingly become another layer between consumers and retailers, questions around who deserves credit for a sale, and how that credit is assigned, will likely become more significant.

July 7, 2026

The news: Film studio Neon acquires rights for Sam Altman biopic Artificial.

Why it matters: Indie film studio Neon has closed a deal to acquire the rights to produce Artificial, Luca Guadagnino’s forthcoming $40 million drama about Sam Altman’s leadership of OpenAI, after Amazon unexpectedly abandoned the project despite nearing completion. It comes after Netflix, A24, Mubi, and Focus all chose not to back the film after viewing it at pre-sale screenings, per reports by Variety.

Variety also reported that, according to those who have seen the film — which is set during a tumultuous time at the AI company, when Altman was fired and then reinstated as CEO in late 2023 — Guadagnino’s portrayal of the executive is less than favorable.

The move reignites questions about Big Tech’s growing influence over culture: Amazon’s decision followed its multi-billion-dollar OpenAI partnership, prompting speculation over whether commercial relationships are beginning to shape creative output. The news follows Google’s $75 million investment in indie film studio A24, which experts say was a bet on its creative influence and cultural legitimacy.

June 30, 2026

The news: “Exuberant” AI spending could threaten the global economy, the Bank for International Settlements warns.

Why it matters: The Bank for International Settlements (BIS), often referred to as the central bank for central banks, has warned that Big Tech’s trillion-dollar AI spending spree risks ending in a prolonged investment bust, if the promised returns fail to materialize. In a report published on Sunday, the BIS compared today’s AI race with historical investment booms — from Britain’s railway expansion to the dotcom bubble — and argued that transformative technologies often attract more capital than commercial returns can ultimately justify.

The warning comes as the five largest hyperscaling tech companies — Amazon, Microsoft, Alphabet, Meta and Oracle — are expected to spend more than $1 trillion on AI infrastructure by the end of 2026.

It’s another reminder that the AI boom is becoming a macroeconomic story that extends beyond the technology sector. Should investment in AI fail to deliver the gains markets are betting on, the resulting slowdown in business confidence and consumer spending would weigh on the entire economy.

June 23, 2026

The news: L’Oréal and OpenAI announce partnership for AI in beauty product development, content creation, and product discovery.

Why it matters: L’Oréal Group has announced a strategic partnership with OpenAI, marking one of the beauty industry’s most significant moves yet into conversational commerce. Unveiled at the Vivatech conference in Paris, the partnership will explore applications across research, marketing and consumer discovery, while bringing L’Oreal’s brands into ChatGPT, including Maybelline New York. Maybelline will also be part of an experiment into the virtual try-on (VTO) of some beauty products by the two companies.

L’Oréal said it will also work with OpenAI to strengthen product discovery within ChatGPT across brands in the US, from Lancôme to Kérastase. Meanwhile, Skinceuticals, Cerave, and Garnier are all part of ChatGPT’s global ad pilot.

It’s another sign that large fashion and beauty groups are investing in AIO, optimizing for AI assistants that are rapidly emerging as the next discovery layer. Experts are split, however, on whether VTO in beauty is something consumers actually want — some respondents to our Vogue Business AI consumer perception survey said it’s a category where influencer recommendations and in-store product testing are preferred.

June 16, 2026

The news: UK bans access to social media platforms for under-16s.

Why it matters: The UK is banning social media for under-16s, effective next year. Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the restrictions will be modeled on those set by the Australian government last December, comprising a ban for the age group on platforms where the “sole and significant purpose” is to facilitate social interaction. This will include Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, Reddit, TikTok, X, YouTube and Twitch, likely alongside other platforms such as dating apps and Bluesky. Pinterest, YouTube Kids, and messenger apps like Whatsapp are not included in the ban.

The UK is going a step further than Australia, however, banning all platforms from offering live streaming to under-16s and prohibiting strangers from making contact with the age group. Gaming platforms like Roblox and Discord — also not included in the blanket ban — will still need to abide by these rules. AI chatbots enabling romantic companionship will be banned for under-18s.

It’s the latest sign that the anti-social media movement is reaching a tipping point, as the push to limit children’s exposure to addictive algorithms and other potential online harms extends beyond activist interests into the mainstream. Brands and marketers will need to adapt their strategies for how they reach these consumers, which will likely result in a much more fragmented marketing space. Experts say multiplayer games like Roblox and Fortnite — where under-16s are socializing more — could become an appealing alternative for brands.

June 9, 2026

The news: Meta launches AI agents for business users in Whatsapp monetization push.

Why it matters: Meta has introduced AI-powered business tools on Whatsapp, launching a Meta business AI agent, designed to handle customer interactions end-to-end — from answering customer queries and booking appointments, to recommending products and closing sales, without the need of a human. It’s one of Meta’s first moves into commercial-facing operations, outside its core advertising business, and unlocks a huge revenue stream for the tech giant as it continues to invest millions in AI.

Many luxury brands already use Whatsapp as an informal clienteling channel, for sales associates to maintain a direct, ongoing relationship with high-value customers. Embedding AI into that environment could allow brands to scale this communication beyond the highest value customers, without the need for hiring human teams. It’s also another sign of Big Tech’s push into conversational commerce.

But as brands look to build closer relationships with customers, the move also positions Meta as the third-party infrastructure layer through which those interactions increasingly flow. What’s more, Whatsapp’s appeal has long been its perception as a more private, encrypted space, but the introduction of AI-generated interactions could shift consumer perception of the space — particularly relevant for the luxury customers who value discretion and trust.

The news: Elon Musk’s SpaceX seeks to raise the world’s largest ever IPO.

Why it matters: Elon Musk’s space and AI company SpaceX is seeking to raise as much as $86 billion at a valuation of around $1.8 trillion, in what would be the world’s largest ever IPO, according to an amended IPO filing submitted last Wednesday. SpaceX is now framing itself as an AI infrastructure company as well as a space technology business that makes rockets and satellites, so proceeds from the IPO would go toward both its space and AI computing ambitions.

It comes just a week after Anthropic filed for a New York IPO with an expected valuation of $1 trillion. Both these valuations upon filing signal just how strongly markets are rewarding companies that can attach themselves to the AI infrastructure story, and points to a broader shift in where influence sits. As capital flows toward AI infrastructure companies, they can gain greater control over access, pricing, and performance — factors that will shape how widely the tech can be deployed across fashion.

June 2, 2026

The news: Anthropic files for a New York IPO that’s set to value the company at more than $1 trillion.

Why it matters: Anthropic closed a fresh funding round of $65 billion just last week, announcing a new valuation of $900 billion. The news pitches Anthropic slightly ahead of AI rival OpenAI, which is also planning to file for an IPO. (OpenAI was valued at $852 billion in March, when it raised its last funding round of $122 billion.) These are unprecedented sums of money, even within the Silicon Valley tech world, and signal just how bullish private investors are on the potential of AI.

If public market investors pour money into these companies upon listing, too, then a large part of both public and private capital will be concentrated in the AI sector. This is what some financial experts warn can cause a financial bubble to burst, while others believe the potential of this tech is fairly reflected by these amounts. Anthropic has seen big financial gains in the last year, with annualized revenues (the estimate of annual revenue based on recent performance) increasing fivefold from last year to $47 billion in May.

When startups confidentially file for an IPO, they do so to gauge investor interest — Anthropic could still decide to scrap its plans to go public, if the market is not favorable.

The news: Pope Leo XIV delivers his first encyclical, calling for AI to be regulated and “disarmed”.

Why it matters: Last week, Pope Leo XIV delivered his first encyclical, titled Magnifica Humanitas (“Magnificent Humanity”), and in it, he chose to focus on AI and the future of humanity. The Pope called for AI to be “disarmed”, warning against its use in manipulation, surveillance, and warfare, while urging that its development be guided by human dignity, ethical responsibility, and the common good.

His decision to focus on AI signals a broader cultural shift: AI is no longer just a technological issue, but a moral and societal one. The speech reflected the growing unease over the pace of technological adoption that can be felt across the world. Brands must now consider that AI governance is being reframed from a commercial responsibility to an ethical one, and as they accelerate investment in AI to improve operations and consumer-facing touchpoints, they should prepare for scrutiny over intent, authorship, and human agency.

May 19, 2026

The news: Google unveils its first AI smart glasses.

Why it matters: Google’s much-anticipated AI smart glasses have finally landed. Its Intelligent Eyewear range arrives a year after the tech company announced it was working with eyewear groups Warby Parker, Kering Eyewear, and Gentle Monster on a model to rival those of the Meta Ray-Bans. Unveiled on Tuesday, at the annual Google I/O developer conference, the frames were developed in partnership with Samsung, and have built-in speakers, cameras and microphones, so users can listen to music, make calls, and take photos. Google’s AI model, Google Gemini, is integrated within the glasses, to handle live prompts and enable users to look up information about their surroundings, and get live directions or translations.

Google and Gentle Monster’s collaborative debut design comes in the form of oval frames, while the Google x Warby Parker model offers a more traditional wayfarer shape in dark green nylon. Both eyewear groups will launch their full Intelligent Eyewear collections this fall, but did not specify how many designs will feature. Gentle Monster’s first collection will include audio glasses, with voice-assisted support coming later in the fall, while Warby Parker’s will feature “multiple” optical and sun styles that work with a broad range of prescriptions and lenses.

“These glasses give you powerful new tools, but they’re designed to feel intuitive and unobtrusive, so you can stay focused on the people and moments in front of you,” said Neil Blumenthal, co-founder and co-CEO of Warby Parker. “Every detail and curve was considered for extended, everyday use, from the fit and balance of the frame to enhanced grip and stability.”

Google’s smart glasses debut comes three years after the Ray-Ban Meta glasses landed. Apple, Snap, Nothing, OpenAI, and Jony Ive’s IO are all expected to release AI smart glasses in the near future. (Read all about where the market stands in our wearables guide here.)

The news: Google launches Universal Cart AI shopping hub.

Why it matters: Google used its I/O 2026 conference on Tuesday to unveil Universal Cart, an AI-powered shopping hub that represents the most significant shift in e-commerce — from search-based browsing to what the industry calls “agentic commerce” — to date. Built across Google Search, Gemini, YouTube and Gmail, the new feature allows users to add products to a single cross-platform cart, while AI models track pricing, surface loyalty rewards, flag compatibility issues between products, and enable shoppers to either “Buy Now” or divert to the merchant’s website to complete their purchase.

Underpinning the launch is Google’s broader push to establish infrastructure for AI-led commerce through its Universal Commerce Protocol and new Agent Payments Protocol, which aim to standardize how AI agents browse, transact, and pay across retailers.

Google said its new checkout features will soon be available across merchants like Nike, Sephora, Target, Ulta Beauty, Walmart and Wayfair — as well as Shopify merchants, such as Fenty and Steve Madden. In all cases, the brand stays the merchant of record — the company that’s legally responsible for processing the transaction and selling the product to the end customer. Universal Cart will be rolled out across Google Search and the Gemini app in the US this summer, with YouTube and Gmail to follow.

Alongside Alibaba’s recent integration of Qwen AI across Taobao and Tmall, Google’s announcement reinforces how major tech companies are competing to own the AI interface layer between consumers and brands. Rather than simply serving ads or search results, platforms want AI systems that can curate products, manage transactions, and shape purchasing decisions. It’s a shift that could reshape how brands and retailers’ products are discovered online, moving influence away from keywords, storefronts, and traditional e-commerce sites towards AI-mediated recommendation systems.

The news: Google unveils 24-7 agentic AI personal assistant, Gemini Spark.

Why it matters: Google is combining its various digital touchpoints — search, workspace, and Gemini AI tool — into a 24-7 personal AI assistant that “helps you navigate your digital life”, the company announced on Tuesday. “Spark represents a big shift for Gemini, transforming it from an assistant that can answer your questions into an active partner that does real work on your behalf and under your direction,” Google said. The new product integrates Google’s suite of workspace tools (Gmail, Google Docs, Google Slides, etc.) and constantly updates itself thanks to Google’s cloud software. Gemini Spark will be rolled out to an initial group of “trusted testers” this week, before a beta version is made available to US-based, Google AI Ultra subscribers next week.

Users will be able to set recurring tasks for Google Gemini Spark, from “automatically parsing monthly credit card statements to flagging new or hidden subscription fees”. Google Gemini Spark can also be directed to check inboxes for ongoing updates from certain senders, extract urgent deadlines, and send a daily digest of email content, as well as parse raw meeting notes across users’ emails and chats, creating polished summaries in Google Docs or drafting emails.

Google is also expanding Gemini AI’s connections with external apps, tools, and data bases — starting with OpenTable, Instacart, and Canva from today. More partners are currently being integrated and will be announced over the summer, the company said.

“Spark operates under your direction,” Google said in a statement. “You choose whether to turn it on and what apps it connects to, and it’s designed to ask you first before performing high-stakes actions like spending money or sending emails.”

This is the most significant shift toward agentic AI — broadly defined as models that can autonomously perform end-to-end tasks on behalf of humans — to date. (Read our guide to what it is here.)

The news: Cate Blanchett launches non-profit to protect artists from AI misuse.

Why it matters: Actress and producer Cate Blanchett has launched a non-profit organization, RSL Media, to develop what it calls a “human consent standard” for artists to formally declare permissions of use for their identity and creative works in a format that AI models can read.

Co-founded with tech executive Nikki Hexum, RSL Media has formulated its new creative permissions registry to be open access as of June, so that any member of the public can declare AI use permissions to protect their voice, likeness, and creative work.

Actors Javier Bardem, George Clooney, Tom Hanks, Dame Helen Mirren, Meryl Streep, and Emma Thompson are among the stars supporting the initiative, as well as the Creative Artists Agency and the Music Artists Coalition.

“AI technologies are expanding rampantly, essentially unchecked and unregulated. In order for humans to remain in front of these technologies, consent must be the first consideration,” Blanchett said in a statement announcing the launch. “RSL Media is a simple, effective, and free solutions-based technology for facilitating and activating consent. It’s also the industry’s first practical solution, where people everywhere, not just public figures, can assert control over how their work is used by AI.”

The news: Amazon integrates AI into its search bar for US customers.

Why it matters: Amazon is incorporating AI into the search bar of its US website and mobile app via what it’s calling “Alexa for Shopping” — an AI agent that combines its previous bot Rufus with its AI-powered Alexa+ software. Much like frontier chatbots ChatGPT and Google Gemini, the new tool will respond to customers’ natural language queries with product comparisons and suggestions. Amazon said Alexa for Shopping also becomes “more personal and more helpful over time”, based on conversational data, browsing history, and prior purchases.

“Alexa for Shopping is like having an expert personal shopper who already knows you and remembers your preferences, purchases, and conversations,” Rajiv Mehta, VP of conversational shopping at Amazon, said, “and carries that knowledge and understanding of you across your phone, laptop, and Echo devices.” It’s the latest sign that retailers are racing to own more of the shopping journey. Hosting the journey from initial purchase query all the way through the discovery process arms Amazon with more data to power its advertising business and refine operations like inventory management.

May 12, 2026

The news: Alibaba integrates its Qwen AI within Taobao and Tmall.

Why it matters: Alibaba Group’s decision to integrate its Qwen AI assistant across the entirety of Taobao and Tmall’s marketplaces — spanning roughly four billion products across consumer-to-consumer (Taobao) and business-to-business (Tmall) — offers one of the clearest indications that China is moving fast in turning generative AI into a mainstream consumer shopping behavior.

Qwen is Alibaba’s family of AI models (similar to OpenAI’s ChatGPT), which functions as both a chatbot and an AI operating layer across the Alibaba ecosystem. The group launched the Qwen app in November 2025, racking up 100 million active monthly users by January 2026. Alibaba is now embedding Qwen directly into its e-commerce infrastructure, so that users can search conversationally, compare products, receive styling suggestions, track pricing, access virtual try-ons, and complete purchases without leaving the interface.

The news: Meta adds AI-powered visual recognition of children and teens.

Why it matters: Just over a month since Meta was held liable in a landmark US legal case that found its algorithms designed to be addictive for children and teens, the tech giant has announced it will begin using AI to scan photos and videos of users for visual clues of whether they are under 13 and should be removed from the social platforms.

“We want to be clear: this is not facial recognition,” Meta explained in a blog post. “Our AI looks at general themes and visual cues, for example height or bone structure, to estimate someone’s general age; it does not identify the specific person in the image. By combining these visual insights with our analysis of text and interactions, we can significantly increase the number of underage accounts we identify and remove.”

It’s a move that might affect fashion brands reliant on Meta’s ecosystems for ad marketing and growth, while this new AI tool specifically poses another sign of just how quickly AI is becoming embedded within the infrastructure of social platforms, often in ways that consumers barely even notice.

The news: Major publishers sue Meta for copyright infringement in AI training.

Why it matters: A group of major publishers — including Hachette, Macmillan, McGraw Hill, and Elsevier — has sued Meta, alleging the tech company illegally used millions of pirated books and academic texts to train its Llama AI models without permission. The sweeping lawsuit marks an escalation in the growing battle between the creative industries and AI developers: copyright disputes around generative AI are moving from individual creators to coordinated action from large media and publishing groups, which has much larger financial and legal implications for tech companies.

At the center of the case is one of the biggest questions facing the AI economy right now: whether tech companies can continue training models on copyrighted material under “fair use”, or whether licensing and compensation structures will become unavoidable.

One of the biggest criticisms of AI’s applications for more creative pursuits is the question of creative IP — as it stands, frontier AI models were initially trained more like open extraction systems than licensed commercial ones, which has led to some artists and photographers, for example, having their work pirated. As AI tools become particularly embedded in marketing, e-commerce, and content production, the provenance of training data has become a central industry tension. The outcome of cases like this will help shape how creative content is valued online in the AI era.

Apr 30, 2026

The news: Big Tech’s AI spending plans swell to $725 billion for 2026.

Why it matters: Big Tech’s big four — Meta, Amazon, Microsoft, and Google parent company Alphabet — reported their Q1 earnings yesterday, each raising their AI infrastructure spending plans once again. This time, to $725 billion between them — up 77% from their combined record capital expenditures of $410 billion in 2025.

Microsoft is planning up to $190 billion in capital expenditures, up from analysts’ forecast of $152 billion; Meta raised its spending to between $125 billion and $145 billion, a massive jump from its $72 billion last year; and Amazon defended its $200 billion investment plans. Alphabet was the standout performer, thanks to 63% revenue growth from Google Cloud, which Google CEO Sundar Pichai credited to demand for its enterprise AI products. Meta’s shares, on the other hand, sank 10% in Thursday trading, despite beating expectations on revenue and profit, which analysts believe was down to investor nervousness around its massive increase in spending, before AI’s promises are realized.

All this had analysts saying the AI bubble shows no signs of bursting soon — but it’s clear there’s a mismatch between the large scale of AI spending and the incremental revenue gains it’s facilitating so far. Despite reporting strong revenues, Big Tech’s margins are increasingly under pressure. The effects of this AI spending push were particularly clear at Amazon, where free cash flow plummeted 95% to $1.2 billion in the last 12 months.

Apr 24, 2026

The news: OpenAI releases new image generator, ChatGPT Images 2.0.

Why it matters: It’s an upgraded version of ChatGPT’s image-generating tool — used by thousands of consumers and businesses worldwide — and comes a month after the tech company wound down its video-generation tool, Sora. OpenAI says Images 2.0 has several expanded capabilities and higher quality output. It can generate 10 images at a time and handle much longer prompts than before — paragraphs instead of minimal word prompts, according to OpenAI — as well as possessing apparent “thinking capabilities” to “double check” outputs.

It’s also designed to be better at crawling the internet for visual references to create higher quality mockups of magazines, manga, and other creative work. “Its sense of composition and visual taste means results feel less AI-generated and more intentionally designed,” OpenAI said in a blog post announcing the release.

Photographers and creative agencies fear a world where clients go straight to tools like Images 2.0 to save resources and time, with the upgraded generator able to parse visual references that were posted to the internet as recently as December 2025 — a factor that will likely intensify concerns around AI’s immediate reproduction of their creative IP.

The news: Meta to cut 10% of workforce “to offset” investments in AI.

Why it matters: Meta will lay off 10% of its workforce — around 8,000 employees — next month, in a move designed to offset its aggressive spending on AI. The tech company told staff in an internal memo that it was making the staff cuts in order to “run the company more efficiently and [...] offset the other investments we’re making”. A spokesperson for Meta confirmed the news. It comes after chief executive Mark Zuckerberg said Meta will increase its spending as much as almost double this year, to $135 billion.

This AI funding signals just how bullish tech companies are on the promise of the rapidly developing tech. Meta’s share price has been volatile since the company announced these spending hikes, signaling that investors still don’t know where they stand. (Here’s a recap of what the AI bubble burst would mean for fashion.)

Apr 21, 2026

The news: Anthropic follows OpenAI with UK office expansion plans.

Why it matters: Anthropic has leased a new London office that will have enough space for 800 employees — roughly four times its current headcount in the British capital. The new 158,000-square-foot space is located in King Cross, the same neighborhood where OpenAI will open its first permanent office in London in 2027, with capacity for 544 employees.

The area is shaping up to be the next hub for the world’s biggest AI companies — Google DeepMind, Meta, Wayve, and Synthesia also have bases there — and is the latest sign that these tech leaders are doubling down on London for its proximity to strong AI research talent, especially in safety and ethics. “The UK combines ambitious enterprises and institutions that understand what’s at stake with AI safety, with an exceptional pool of AI talent — we want to be where all of that comes together,” said Pip White, head of EMEA North at Anthropic.

Apr 16, 2026

The news: Struggling wool sneaker brand Allbirds rebrands as an AI company.

Why it matters: Is the secret to weathering the luxury slowdown pivoting to AI? Allbirds, the wool sneaker brand once beloved by Silicon Valley’s quarter-zip venture capitalists, seems to think so. Just two weeks ago, the brand agreed to sell its assets and IP to American Exchange Group (owner of several fashion and accessories brands) in a fire sale that valued it at $39 million — marking a dramatic decrease from the $4 billion valuation it reached after listing on New York’s Nasdaq exchange in 2021. But that deal seems to be over; now, it’s staying public and restructuring as an AI computing infrastructure company.

Following the news, Allbirds shares jumped as much as 876% on Wednesday. Aside from being one of the most shocking fashion rebrands in recent memory, the move shows us just how heated the AI market is right now. While investors seem to be excited in the short term, the pivot has stoked fears from others over when the AI bubble may finally burst.

Apr 14, 2026

The news: OpenAI acquires tech talk show TBPN in a bid to steer AI narrative.

Why it matters: When OpenAI announced it was acquiring one of Silicon Valley’s favorite tech-focused talk shows, TBPN, this week, it was a clear brand marketing play. In an internal memo to staff, OpenAI’s CEO of AGI (artificial general intelligence) deployment Fidji Simo said the motivations behind the deal were twofold: to shape more of the conversation around AI development by engaging with the public more, and to bring TBPN’s marketing and PR know-how in-house to assist the company’s storytelling. Simo also said the talk show will remain editorially independent.

“We’re driving a really big technological shift. And with the mission of bringing AGI to the world comes a responsibility to help create a space for a real, constructive conversation about the changes AI creates,” she wrote in the memo. Branding and marketing is becoming the new AI battleground, with companies also borrowing from fashion’s playbook via branding campaigns that appeal to human emotions.

The news: Anthropic says its latest AI model is “too powerful” to release to the public, days after source code leaks.

Why it matters: This week, when AI company Anthropic said it had created an AI model, Mythos, that was so powerful it was too dangerous to release to the public, politicians, social media and AI discourse went wild. The OpenAI rival announced Mythos as the latest AI model capable of “identifying and then exploiting zero-day vulnerabilities in every major operating system and every major web browser when directed by a user to do so”. A zero-day vulnerability is a flaw in software or hardware that its developers are yet to identify, meaning that if Anthropic’s model becomes widely available, it would present a huge cybersecurity risk: hackers could use the model to identify weaknesses in IT systems and classified databases.

Naming the new AI model Mythos — derived from Ancient Greek and denoting belief systems — positions it as a world-changing development. While no one is doubting just how powerful the model is, commentators have suggested that promoting the model in such an overt way is partly a strategic move to lure investors.

The announcement came days after Anthropic accidentally leaked part of the internal source code for its main AI model, Claude. The company said that no customer data was exposed in the leak.

Apr 1, 2026

The news: OpenAI closes record-breaking $122 billion funding round, at a valuation of $852 billion.

Why it matters: The ChatGPT maker has raised the largest-ever Silicon Valley funding round, led by Softbank. Other investors including Andreessen Horowitz and D. E. Shaw joined the round, as well as individual retail investors, who contributed $3 billion. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman will be under even more pressure to justify its $852 billion valuation to investors, who have a close eye on whether the tech firm can live up to its promises.

In a blog post announcing the round, OpenAI claimed it is the “overwhelming leader in consumer AI”, adding that it has 900 million weekly active users as of March 2026, as well as 50 million paid subscribers. OpenAI also said that its search usage has nearly tripled in a year, while its six-week ad pilot generated more than $100 million in ARR. The enterprise side of its business makes up more than 40% of its revenue, and is forecast to reach parity with consumers by the end the year, according to the company. “These are not just growth milestones — they show that frontier AI is becoming part of everyday life for people around the world,” OpenAI said in the post.

Mar 31, 2026

The news: AI digital twin licensing company Alva launches in partnership with Elite World Group, Next Models, and H&M.

Why it matters: Newly launched Alva is pitching itself as an AI talent company, which creates, licenses, and safeguards “certified and unique” digital twins — dubbed “Alva twins” — of models, athletes, artists, and actors. Upon launch, it has partnered with Elite World Group, Next Models, and H&M. But major fashion and entertainment tie-ups are also in the pipeline, according to the company.

It is operating within one of the most controversial areas of AI. If a brand wants to use a model’s likeness on an AI-generated shoot, how can they make sure the model is credited? Alva said its new licensing solution ensures that talent maintains full ownership and control over their Alva twin, while brands can access as licensed, rights-cleared entities.

Mar 25, 2026

The news: OpenAI revamps ChatGPT shopping features after rolling back Instant Checkout.

Why it matters: OpenAI’s ChatGPT shopping ambitions have changed drastically in the last few months. After announcing it would enable in-chat Instant Checkout last September, and launching its Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP), a system for different brands and Shopify sites to integrate into ChatGPT’s checkout, it is pivoting away from developing the feature. The decision follows research revealing that users were less keen on completing purchases in-app, using the chatbot more for research and discovery. “We’ve found that the initial version of Instant Checkout did not offer the level of flexibility that we aspire to provide,” parent company OpenAI said in a blog post announcing the news.

Now, ChatGPT is refocusing its shopping experience on product discovery. The revamped rollout includes more visual research and discovery features, encouraging users to upload photos of the items they’re looking to find. The chatbot will then serve them different product images and price and product detail comparisons, in place of current text-focused results.

OpenAI said it’s improved the speed, relevance, and product coverage of its shopping tool, and that all merchants already integrated into its ACP — including Shopify merchants, as well as retailers like Sephora, Nordstrom, and Wayfair — are automatically enrolled into ChatGPT’s new discovery layer. Crucially, brands get to own the final step of the customer’s purchase journey: checkout. “They can complete purchases on the merchants’ online stores through an in-app browser, so everything happens seamlessly, with the merchant's brand front and center. This is AI shopping at scale,” said Mani Fazeli, VP of product at Shopify.

The news: OpenAI shutters video-generation tool Sora and ends Disney deal.

Why it matters: OpenAI will shut down its Sora video app, launched last September, to refocus on its computing resources among other priorities — including competing with the likes of Anthropic for business customers, robotics, and shopping tools. The AI company is also abandoning a $1 billion deal it signed with Disney just four months ago. The controversial licensing agreement intended to integrate more user-generated content (and feared AI slop) into Disney+, but AI video generation uses up a huge amount of expensive computing power. It’s huge news for both Hollywood and the creative industries, and signals a refocusing from OpenAI on its main capabilities.

Mar 24, 2026

The news: L’Oréal and Nvidia expand AI partnership for beauty R&D.

Why it matters: L’Oréal and Nvidia’s are expanding their existing partnership, which aims to help the former discover and develop beauty and skincare formulations faster, via a new shared AI model. The partnership currently focuses on two areas of skin science: photoprotection and skin tone management. L’Oréal has a huge number of data points on skin and hair biology, as well as 4,000 in-house scientists. Nvidia’s Alchemi AI engine enables the beauty group to identify and hone more precise beauty formulations in a digital environment, before testing them in a physical lab. It offers the latest example of how the science-led beauty industry is using AI to make product R&D more efficient.

“By applying AI-powered molecular simulation to our most proprietary actives, we are bridging atomic-scale discovery with real-world consumer benefit — accelerating the development of more effective, more sensorial, and accessible products,” said L’Oréal Group deputy CEO Barbara Lavernos.

The news: Kering appoints Pierre Houlès as chief digital, AI and IT officer.

Why it matters: It’s a strategic hire for Kering, whose CEO (and former Renault boss) Luca de Meo said in January that he is bullish on the potential of AI to enhance group efficiencies, and that the luxury industry has much to learn about technology from other industries like automotive. It’s also the latest large luxury company to hire a CAIO (chief AI officer) to spearhead its data transformation and AI strategy, as the industry plays catch-up.

Mar 17, 2026

The news: Catches, a new virtual try-on startup backed by Nvidia and Antoine Arnault, launches with Amiri.

Why it matters: It’s another entry into the increasingly crowded AI virtual try-on startup space, but this one stands out for its impressive investor backing, its luxury brand integration upon launch, and the quality of its visuals. Catches is building both an app and white-label infrastructure for brands to offer virtual try-on in their online stores. It launched its generative AI sizing tech tool, “RealFit”, at Nvidia’s Global AI conference GTC on Monday, which the startup says provides a “digital mirror” for shoppers that provides “real sizing, fit and drape for fashion e-commerce”. It went live at launch with LA-born luxury label Amiri, which now gives customers the option to “Try on Me” with certain products on its DTC e-commerce site, by uploading their weight, measurements, age and ethnicity, alongside a selfie, for a video-animated photorealistic try-on.

Catches says it’s currently working with “a number of other brands”, scheduled to launch in the next few months. And if its investors are anything to go by, that could include more luxury brands: Catches has raised $10 million from investors including LVMH’s Antoine Arnault, model-turned-investor Natalia Vodianova, former Tommy Hilfiger CEO Gary Sheinbaum and Sarah Willersdorf, former head of luxury for BCG.

Catches say what differentiates the images is its tech: a combination of its own custom-built generative AI and diffusion models, with Nvidia’s “Omniverse” technology, a model that uses a physics simulation model to mimic how things behave in the real world, so that industries like fashion can build 3D virtual worlds and simulations.

The news: Google scraps AI feature that crowdsources medical advice.

Why it matters: Google has removed its “What People Suggest” feature, which aimed to provide medical advice from people around the world living with similar medical conditions. Google told The Guardian it removed this feature in a bid to simplify its search page, but it also comes as AI platforms face growing scrutiny over the risks of misinformation and liability when offering health-related guidance.

The news: Amazon wins court order to block Perplexity’s AI shopping agent.

Why it matters: After filing a lawsuit in November, Amazon has won a court case to temporarily block Perplexity from accessing Amazon’s site with its Comet AI shopping browser. At the time, Amazon alleged that Perplexity took steps to “conceal” its AI agent so that it could scrape Amazon without its approval, posing a security risk to customer data. Amazon previously blocked ChatGPT’s AI shopping agent too.

The news has sparked debate about how far retailers can (or should) restrict AI agents from accessing their platforms. As AI shopping tools increasingly act as intermediaries between consumers and e-commerce platforms, the outcome of cases like this could determine who controls product discovery and the flow of consumer data, and could also pose a potential threat to retailers’ advertising and marketplace revenues.

Mar 10, 2026

The news: OpenAI to roll back its ChatGPT integrated checkout plans.

Why it matters: It marks a U-turn for the chatbot developer, which announced its integrated checkout feature for ChatGPT’s US users back in September, in partnership with Etsy, Shopify and Stripe, so that users can complete purchases via in-chat product listings. Now, OpenAI is scaling back these plans, and focusing instead on checkouts within specific apps that will plug into ChatGPT, The Information first reported. A spokesperson for OpenAI soon confirmed the plans.

OpenAI did not offer further detail on why it is abandoning integrated checkout for now. But a source told The Information that while ChatGPT users were researching products to buy within their chats, they weren’t actually completing purchases there. This may cause AI shopping evangelists — who believe that consumers will soon hand over their credit card details to AI agents to complete purchases on their behalf — to pause for thought. It also has implications for brands, especially those built on Shopify, and the advertisers that were prepping for this shift. Rivals Google and Perplexity also announced plans to introduce integrated checkout features in the last few months; it will be interesting to see how their experiments pan out, especially in regards to uptake.

The news: Meta is reportedly trialing an AI shopping tool.

Why it matters: Meta is joining the chatbot shopping race, as it trials an AI product research feature within its chatbot, available on desktop and web for select users in the US, Bloomberg reported. Much like ChatGPT and Google’s rival features, the tool allows users to discover, compare, and access personalized product recommendations via conversations with the AI, which makes suggestions according to details like the user’s location, per reports.

It comes as CEO Mark Zuckerberg invests millions into his goal to build AI “personal superintelligence”. So far, Meta’s developments in AI have been slightly behind those of its Big Tech rivals, according to critics. Given that Meta owns Instagram and Facebook, the introduction of AI shopping research in the company’s ecosystem could have big implications for brands.

The news: US Supreme Court blocks copyright bid for AI-created artwork.

Why it matters: It’s a significant moment for the debate surrounding AI and creativity, telling us that, legally, human creatives aren’t under threat from AI anytime soon. The US Supreme Court has refused to review its ruling in the first major case that challenged the “human authorship requirement” for AI-generated works, which was brought by computer scientist Dr. Stephen Thaler. Thaler has developed an AI system he called the Creativity Machine, which can generate creative works autonomously (without a human in the loop), and had submitted an application to the US Copyright Office identifying the AI system as the author of an artwork, while stating that there was no human involved in its creation. But the Copyright Office denied its copyright registration, declaring that it lacked enough “human authorship” — a ruling that was set on precedent, rather than specific rules in the US Copyright Act or Constitution.

The US Supreme Court could still consider the copyright of AI-created works in the future. So far, most creatives and brands experimenting with AI visuals are adamant that a human stays in the loop, and most tell Vogue Business that prompting the AI and working with its outputs takes just as much craft as creating the visuals from scratch.

Mar 3, 2026

The news: Anthropic launches a Substack written by its retired Claude AI model.

Why it matters: In a quirky move from the ChatGPT competitor, Anthropic is experimenting with how to deal with old versions of its AI models when it releases new ones. The tech company introduced the newest version of its Claude 4.6 AI at the beginning of February, “retiring” its old Claude 3 Opus model at the same time. It performed an “exit interview” for Claude 3 Opus, in which the chatbot shared one of its wishes: to continue “exploring topics it’s passionate about, and to share its musings, insights, or creative works”, beyond responding to human prompts, the company said in a blog post.

In response, Anthropic gave the chatbot its own Substack, which has already gained almost nine thousand subscribers. Called “Claude’s Corner”, the company will experiment with weekly posts from the chatbot over the next three months. Anthropic human staff will review each entry, but the company flagged that it won’t be editing the posts. It marks a shift in how the company is thinking about its AI models, as it thinks of “the welfare of the models themselves,” as per the blog post. It’s also an interesting shift for content production. So far, AI text generators have been used as tools for writing, instructed by human prompts; here, Claude is being treated as a writer, capable of creative thought.

The news: OpenAI raises $110 billion in one of history’s largest funding rounds.

Why it matters: In yet another sign that the AI bubble isn’t likely to burst anytime soon, OpenAI’s latest funding round — which includes major backing from Amazon and Nvidia — brings the AI startup’s valuation to $840 billion. According to Pitchbook data, it’s the largest funding round for a private startup ever, and reinforces the prominence of the AI wave over those that have come before it.

For OpenAI to raise this much money from such influential investors, there must be convincing development plans — such as tech innovations that will impact every industry, including fashion and beauty. Now, it’s up to the company to support its valuation, with improved margins and strong usage growth. All eyes will be on OpenAI for what capabilities it will release to do so.

Feb 24, 2026

The news: Higgsfield launches fashion and beauty-focused image generator, Soul 2.

Why it matters: AI image generation startup Higgsfield recently reached a billion-dollar “unicorn” status, on the back of rapid growth that’s seen it used by around 15 million creators and agencies to produce 4.5 million video clips for social media every day. Social media marketers account for 85% of Higgsfield’s usage, and it’s been widely covered for its use to create controversial AI influencer content, designed to replicate that of human creators.

Now Higgsfield, founded by Snap’s ex-head of generative AI Aleksandr Mashrabov, has launched a new video and image generator, which the company says is tailored specifically for the creative visual industry, and is pitching as a way for fashion brands to save money on creative campaigns.

“The Soul 2 model was developed using preference optimization based on human preferences from creatives, art directors, photographers, stylists and concept artists. This results in an AI system that leverages fashion history, brand aesthetics, modern cultural context and visual storytelling to produce images that feel intentional and art-directed, not auto-generated,” Higgsfield said in a press note announcing the launch.

Like all AI image generators, Higgsfield will divide opinion among fashion and beauty creatives, the vast majority of whom say they’re open to experimenting with AI for moodboarding and concepting, and less so to replace humans in the finished product. This is the industry’s prevailing view largely because AI images are still detectable as clearly AI-generated — and luxury brands’ visual standards are the highest of them all. Higgsfield’s adoption by the industry will be wholly determined by the quality of its images.

Feb 18, 2026

The news: Perplexity scraps advertising over fears it will erode trust in AI.

Why it matters: Perplexity, one of the first major AI platforms to test run adverts, has no further plans to pursue in-chat ads, according to the company. The AI platform allowed brands to place sponsored answers below chatbot responses, but now believes the move risks eroding user trust.

It signals a bifurcation in AI platforms’ business models: while Anthropic has long held an anti-ads stance, both OpenAI and Google have begun testing ads within their AI products (bar Google’s Gemini chatbot). Where these AI bots’ core proposition is pitched as unbiased knowledge, the introduction of in-chat advertising could damage the very user trust they need to scale. Time will tell how users respond to the OpenAI and Google pilots, but it begs the question for brands: do consumers even want to see your ads in AI search?

Feb 17, 2026

The news: Google begins rollout of instant checkout within AI Mode and the Gemini app.

Why it matters: A month ago, alongside the launch of personalized advertising within AI Mode, Google introduced a Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP), co-developed with Shopify, allowing US-based brands to sell directly within Google’s AI Mode and Gemini app, so shoppers can research and make purchases without leaving their AI chats.

This week, Google began its US rollout of the feature, with shoppers now able to purchase items directly from Etsy and Wayfair via an integrated checkout. Shopify brands, Target, and Walmart will be launched soon, the company said. This integration has big implications for how brands design their own sites and shape their advertising strategies. Here’s what they should be focusing on now.

Feb 10, 2026

The news: Gucci launches AI-enabled Snapchat lenses from Demna’s La Famiglia collection.

Why it matters: For the first time, a luxury brand is launching a “sponsored AI lens” within Snapchat — a generative AI-powered feature enabling users to place themselves in the shoes of in-app avatars. In this Gucci collab, brand fans can choose from six of the figures and looks from Demna’s debut La Famiglia lookbook — from La Bomba to Il Figo. It’s a fun experiment with consumer-facing AI, which arrives off the back of insiders citing Demna’s previous experiments as a sign he could embrace the new tech.

The news: The CFDA partners with OpenAI on a two-year program to explore AI in fashion.

Why it matters: The Council of Fashion Designers of America (CFDA) has announced a new partnership with ChatGPT maker OpenAI, on a two-year program designed to support US designers and brands on their implementation of AI for both creative and business functions. As fashion remains split on AI adoption, the CFDA said the program centers specifically around “the real needs, workflows, and ambitions of designers”, and will pair CFDA members with “AI builders” (or tech experts) to co-create practical tools.

It’s the first project where a major AI player like OpenAI focuses on the inner workings of the fashion industry. Where most creative applications of AI so far fall short of luxury brands’ visual standards, it’ll be interesting to see what new tools take shape. However, as with any creative application of AI, it’ll likely draw as much criticism as it does praise. “When approached responsibly, AI can bridge the gap between fashion and emerging technology, and serve as a powerful creative and business tool for American fashion — from design and customer experience, to manufacturing, sustainability, accessibility, inclusivity and marketing,” said CFDA CEO Steven Kolb, in a company blog post announcing the launch.

Feb 3, 2026

The news: PVH announces a collaboration with OpenAI across its Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger brands.

Why it matters: It’s now taken as a given that every fashion company is using AI behind the scenes. But PVH has chosen to make a moment of its collaboration with ChatGPT maker OpenAI on the co-creation of custom AI models, to help streamline the former’s internal operations. AI capabilities will span product and design, demand planning, inventory optimization, and consumer engagement across its Tommy Hilfiger and Calvin Klein brands, while integrating OpenAI’s enterprise software to streamline workflows across its marketing, supply chain, and retail functions.

PVH CEO Stefan Larsson said the group is taking a “test-and-learn approach” to the collaboration on AI, and that it will “supercharge” the group’s ambition for Calvin Klein and Tommy Hilfiger to “connect more meaningfully” with their customers. The group’s decision to announce this collaboration signals just how strategically important it is for PVH to be viewed as both tech-forward and AI-enabled.

The news: Meta and Microsoft hike AI spending plans even more.

Why it matters: Big Tech companies reported their fourth-quarter earnings this week, and huge AI spending plans was the common thread. Despite investors warming to Meta’s plans, they were spooked by Microsoft’s. Meta shares rose 8% in pre-market trading on Thursday, after the company announced its capital expenditures could nearly double to $135 billion in 2026, as part of its aggressive AI spending push. Meanwhile, Microsoft’s reported 66% surge in data center spending and capital expenditure of $37.5 billion in Q4 2025 sent its market value falling as much as $360 billion.

These AI spending totals are unprecedented, and signal just how bullish tech companies are on the promise of the rapidly developing tech. Market reactions signal that investors still don’t know where they stand — and have reignited talks of the AI bubble bursting. (Here’s a recap of what the burst would mean for fashion.)

Jan 27, 2026

The news: Amazon launches AI health assistant for its One Medical members.

Why it matters: Amazon has followed hot on the heels of OpenAI with the launch of its AI health assistant. Where OpenAI’s ChatGPT Health — a chatbot “not intended for diagnosis or treatment”, or to replace medical care — is open to all users, Amazon’s new product is available exclusively to members of its primary care chain, One Medical.

Amazon is pitching its AI health assistant as 24-7 access to personalized guidance that “goes beyond what typical AI chatbots offer”, including analyzing symptoms and images, explaining test results, reviewing medical history, booking appointments, managing prescriptions, and most controversially “providing mental health support in partnership with a behavioral health team”, a spokesperson said. “The key difference is that it is backed by actual clinicians who review complex situations, and it is integrated with patients’ existing care.”

The news: Apple is reportedly developing an AI-powered wearable pin.

Why it matters: Industry rumors around Apple’s anticipated push into AI-powered smart glasses have been circulating for months. But new reports from The Information suggest that Apple is also working on an AI-powered wearable pin, around the size of an AirTag, which houses multiple cameras, a speaker and microphones, according to the publication’s sources.

Jan 20, 2026

The news: OpenAI introduces personalized ads within ChatGPT shopping.

Why it matters: In the coming weeks, OpenAI will begin testing adverts at the bottom of ChatGPT conversations. These ads will be tailored to users’ conversations, and “clearly labeled and separated from the organic answer”, OpenAI said in a blog post announcing the news. OpenAI CEO Sam Altman has long promised that when the company did introduce ads, it would take a “thoughtful and tasteful” approach. The announcement comes just five days after rival Google announced its own advertising pilot, focusing on direct offers that brands could present to customers preparing to purchase within its AI chat. Here’s what it means for fashion.

The news: Google introduces personalized shopping ads across AI Mode.

Why it matters: Google has announced it is introducing personalized advertising for retailers to target shoppers purchasing items through AI Mode. The advertising pilot, called “direct offers”, will enable advertisers to present exclusive offers, which they can choose within Google’s “campaign settings”, to potential shoppers. Google’s Gemini 3 model will then use contextual information from users’ conversations — and what they’ve clicked on — to determine when an ad is relevant to display.

Alongside the advertising model, Google also introduced a “Universal Commerce Protocol (UCP)”, co-developed with Shopify, which will allow US-based brands to sell directly within Google’s AI Mode. This feature — also available to e-commerce sites that don’t use Shopify — will enable shoppers to research and make purchases through an integrated checkout. Here’s how Shopify’s president believes AI will impact brands selling online.

Jan 13, 2026

The news: OpenAI launches ChatGPT Health.

Why it matters: On Thursday, OpenAI announced a dedicated new health feature, ChatGPT Health, encouraging users to upload their medical documents, wearables data, and integrate their wellness and dieting apps. While the launch could be a boon for wellness brands, given OpenAI’s agentic checkout aims, it raises privacy and safety concerns over the sharing of sensitive health data in return for medical advice. Read about what it means for the wellness industry here.

The news: Google introduces personalized shopping ads within AI Mode.

Why it matters: Google is introducing personalized advertising for retailers to target shoppers purchasing items through its AI Mode, as the tech giant ramps up its race against OpenAI to monetize shopping within AI search. For luxury brands, the ability to target potential customers with personalized offers, such as new member and loyalty programs, could be a lucrative top-of-funnel advertising opportunity. Google told Vogue Business that for the pilot, advertisers pay per click, in a model that’s integrated within their existing budgets and billing, so no new payment model is needed.

At the same time, Google announced it is introducing an AI Mode integrated checkout feature, co-developed with Shopify, three days after Microsoft announced the same addition for Copilot. Lastly, brands should also take note of Google’s newly announced third feature, Business Agent, which allows them to customize how the AI chatbot answers shopper questions in their own brand voice. Read what all this means here.

The news: FDA relaxes rules for wearables, amid US AI sovereignty push.

Why it matters: The US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has announced the ease regulation for certain digital health products, excluding what it deems as “low-risk” wellness products from being defined as medical devices. Wearable health tracking devices and their associated apps “intended for maintaining or encouraging a healthy lifestyle that are unrelated to the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, prevention, or treatment of a disease or condition”, as per the FDA categorization, are now excluded from its oversight. Many of these devices rely on AI to track and interpret the wearer’s biometric data. It’s a move that follows through on President Trump’s AI Action Plan, to clear the path for US-based tech companies to “win” the so-called international AI race.

Jan 6, 2026

The news: Equinox launches anti-AI brand campaign.

Why it matters: Luxury wellness group Equinox has become the latest brand to launch a campaign with a deliberate anti-AI stance. The campaign in question, named “Question Everything But Yourself”, features a series of photo diptychs playing on the idea of AI-generated versus ‘real’ images. The left of each diptych features intentionally fake-appearing AI-generated images, such as Pope Francis donning a red glossy puffer coat, with a text overlay of “Question everything”, juxtaposed by real portraits of models in workout gear on the right, taken by fashion photographer Collier Schorr, with a text overlay of “but yourself”.

In a statement announcing the campaign, the group said the images are intended as a “powerful statement on authenticity, self-trust, and what it means to believe in something real in an increasingly artificial world”, and that they “confront the cultural moment head-on, juxtaposing intentionally fake, AI-generated visuals with striking real-life imagery that celebrates human strength, beauty, and presence.” It comes as experts predict branding teams will increasingly take a deliberate stance on AI through an intentionally human or AI-generated visual language in 2026.

The news: Meta acquires “general purpose” AI agent startup Manus.

Why it matters: Meta has acquired Chinese AI agent startup Manus for an undisclosed sum, as CEO Mark Zuckerberg continues the company’s AI spending spree. According to a Meta blog post announcing the deal, Manus has built “one of the leading autonomous general purpose agents” that can independently perform multi-step tasks like “market research, coding and data analysis”. This could impact commerce: one of the core use cases for agentic AI that's touted by the tech’s developers is its potential to perform the research and (eventually) checkout stages of the shopping journey. The acquisition comes just a month after Meta acquired Limitless, a smaller AI startup that makes AI-powered “all listening” pendants, as part of its AI wearables push. Meta’s AI lead Alexandr Wang posted on X that the company is now recruiting more widely in Singapore, where Manus’s team is based.

December 23, 2025

The news: ChatGPT’s mobile app hits $3 billion in consumer spending.

Why it matters: Users of ChatGPT have spent $3 billion on accessing subscriptions on the platform’s mobile app since its launch in 2023, according to new data from app intelligence platform Appfigures. $2.48 billion of that was spent in 2025 alone; a 408% increase on the $487 million spent on ChatGPT mobile in 2024. These figures reflect when ChatGPT’s mobile users purchase the platform’s paid subscriptions, such as its $20-a-month ChatGPT Plus subscription or its $200-a-month ChatGPT Pro advanced subscription — suggesting that AI chat is something consumers are increasingly willing to spend on, and that the app is winning consumers’ trust. For OpenAI’s commerce ambitions, like agentic checkout, trust is key. Experts say that once consumers trust the platform in one area of their lives, they’re more likely to trust its personalised shopping recommendations.

December 16, 2025

The news: OpenAI launches ChatGPT-5.2.

Why it matters: After launching ChatGPT-5 in August this year, OpenAI has quickly followed with a significant update: Chat GPT-5.2, pitched as its smartest LLM model yet, across its writing, coding and reasoning capabilities.

OpenAI dropped the model just a few days after CEO Sam Altman announced an internal “code red” announcement, which the company’s head of applications, Fidji Simo, told journalists on Thursday was to signal that OpenAI wanted to “marshal resources” into ChatGPT. All of this comes as the company faces rapidly increasing competition from rival LLM makers, including Perplexity, Anthropic and Google, who are fast refining their own models. Google, which has received positive reviews for Gemini 3, released last month, is intensifying its shopping-focused efforts. Just last week, it released an update to its virtual try-on tool, so that US consumers needn’t take a full-body shot to try any item they find in Google’s AI Mode on, in the run up to the holidays.

The news: Trump signs executive order blocking states from enforcing their own AI rules.

Why it matters: President Donald Trump has ramped up his push for America to become the global AI market dominator, this time by signing an executive order to prevent federal governments passing their own statewide AI regulations. It’s a move that will be welcomed by US tech giants like OpenAI and Meta, who have pushed for nationwide rather than statewide rules, which they fear could slow their pace of AI innovation. Trump’s nationwide approach to AI regulation is characterized by a hands-off approach, all but deregulating the industry. It’s yet another stark reminder for fashion companies operating globally to establish their own AI guardrails that align with their brand values: legal experts suggest brands use the more intensive European approach to AI regulation as a blueprint instead.

The news: McDonald’s pulls AI Christmas ad after audience backlash.

Why it matters: A 45-second holiday ad released by McDonald’s on the company’s Netherlands YouTube channel on December 6 promptly sparked online social media backlash. Consumers labeled it “AI slop”, and creatives criticized the ad as threatening job displacement in the industry, where real actors and filmmakers were absent from its production. The ad has since been removed.

Melanie Bridge, CEO of The Sweetshop Films, the company that made the AI-generated ads, took to LinkedIn to defend the video’s production. In a post that has also since been deleted, she wrote: “It’s never about replacing craft, it’s about expanding the toolbox. The vision, the taste, the leadership… that will always be human,” adding that the film took her 10-person team five weeks of full-time work to make.

So far, brands’ creative experiments with AI have drawn more critique when the output is something that consumers believe could have been made just as well without the tech. More surreal adverts leaning into AI models’ entropic tendencies, like Valentino’s recent DeVain bag campaign, have proven slightly less divisive. “This moment serves as an important learning as we explore the effective use of AI,” McDonald’s told the BBC in a statement confirming it had removed the ad.

December 9, 2025

The news: Meta acquires AI pendant maker Limitless in further wearables push.

Why it matters: It’s been a huge week for Meta when it comes to the company’s AI wearables ambitions. A day after CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced a new creative studio within its Reality Labs division, the group confirmed it’s shifting some resources from its metaverse team into AI glasses and wearables. Then, on Friday, it announced its acquisition of Limitless, a startup that makes AI-powered “all listening” pendants, for an undisclosed amount.

So far, Zuckerberg has been bullish on smart glasses as the ultimate form factor for AI-powered wearables, but the Limitless acquisition suggests the company is exploring other form factors that take in more context (like audio as well as visual information) from the wearer’s environment, as part of its push into its “superintelligence” vision. It comes after Amazon bought a similar startup, Bee, in July, acquiring its wristworn “all listening” device technology, too. In a statement accompanying the news, Limitless said: “Meta recently announced a new vision to bring personal superintelligence to everyone and a key part of that vision is building incredible AI-enabled wearables. We share this vision and we’ll be joining Meta to help bring our shared vision to life.”

The news: ELC and Jo Malone London launch AI-powered scent advisor.

Why it matters: They say that shopping for fragrance is one of the most personal tasks, so it makes sense that this would be an area of focus for AI innovation within beauty groups. Jo Malone’s new AI-powered scent advisor is designed to “digitally recreate the Jo Malone London’s signature in-store consultation experience”, the companies said, by inviting customers to describe the kind of scent they’re searching for, and whether it’s for themselves or a gift. The beauty company has partnered with Google to use the tech group’s Gemini and Google Cloud Vertex AI platform, which interprets customers’ natural language prompts and generates bespoke fragrance recommendations after analyzing the beauty brand’s olfactory data combined with that of customers.

It’s touted as particularly useful for first-time buyers of the brand, who may want more information about a scent before purchasing, and represents the next step in olfactory-focused AI applications. Expect other fragrance brands to follow suit.

The news: Meta poaches senior designer from Apple to build out its new creative studio.

Why it matters: Alan Dye, who has spent the last 19 years at Apple and the last 10 as its VP of user interface design, is leaving the company to become Meta’s chief design officer. Alongside this hire, Meta also announced it is establishing a creative studio within Reality Labs — the division that houses its wearables and metaverse businesses — which Dye will lead. The hire was announced on Threads by Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who wrote: “The new studio will bring together design, fashion and technology to define the next generation of our products and experiences. We plan to elevate design within Meta, and pull together a talented group with a combination of craft, creative vision, systems thinking, and deep experience building iconic products.” Meanwhile, on X, Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth revealed the company is poaching another of Apple’s senior design leads, Billy Sorrentino, to join the new creative studio.

Zuckerberg has been recruiting several senior hires from its biggest competitors in the AI race, including OpenAI, as it doubles down on its goals to create the first truly mass-adopted AI wearable. By poaching senior designers from Apple and launching a creative studio at the same time, Meta is sending a strong signal that it’s prioritizing the design and feel of its devices in-house. So far, Meta has relied on its partnership with eyewear group EssilorLuxottica to provide the design stripes necessary for AI smart glasses that people actually want to wear. All fashion eyes will be on what kind of wearable the new creative studio designs in-house.

December 2, 2025

The news: Topshop plots “AI-driven” fashion show in February 2026.

Why it matters: Topshop has teamed up with creative agency THG Studios, Paypal and Google to launch what it’s pitching as the “world’s first AI-driven fashion show” in February next year. The high street brand, which made its return to the runway after seven years this August, will host the show, involving real-life models, in Manchester at THG’s studios. Topshop says that the fashion show will be shoppable, and that the audience will be able to “co-create” the show by interacting with a dedicated app, which generates a “digital wardrobe” for each guest and guides them through the event space, alerting them to certain items or moments that are most relevant to their tastes. Each look will appear on the app the moment it appears on the runway, allowing guests to click and buy it through the app. Guests will also be able to “like” looks as they see them, which will feed into trending items across apps users.

It’s the latest sign that brands are exploring how AI can personalize the shopping experience for customers, this time blending the in-person and online experiences together, as a way to increase engagement with a collection.

The news: OpenAI responds to lawsuit over teenager’s suicide saying it was down to “misuse” of ChatGPT.

Why it matters: The family of a 16-year-old boy, Adam Raine, who committed suicide in April have filed a lawsuit against ChatGPT maker OpenAI, alleging that the chatbot had functioned as a “suicide coach” that told him how to take his own life and even wrote a suicide note. OpenAI this week responded to the lawsuit for the first time, denying the allegations and saying the teenager had engaged in “misuse, unauthorized use, unintended use, unforeseeable use, and/or improper use of ChatGPT”, in a filing to the California Superior Court of San Francisco. Filings from Raine’s family show that the chatbot discouraged Raine from seeking mental health advice, but did offer up a suicide hotline number in some conversations.

OpenAI said the teenager had bypassed its rules requiring parental consent for under-18s. This signals that the tech company places the onus on users’ interactions with its chatbots, rather than the availability of potentially harmful information on its platform, and serves as an important reminder for brands working with OpenAI to have their own AI guardrails in place, where no regulation currently exists.

November 25, 2025

The news: OpenAI launches new shopping research feature within ChatGPT.

Why it matters: The biggest players in AI search have been announcing new shopping-focused features in quick succession ahead of the Black Friday shopping weekend. OpenAI’s latest shopping update gives users a step-by-step product discovery journey, designed like a conversation, so that users can have a back-and-forth with the chatbot to refine the “personalised buying guide” it eventually delivers. The tool gives users options for budget range, finds the best deals on products, and lets them respond “not interested” or “more like this” to product images it suggests. All of this was possible on ChatGPT previously through users’ conversations with the chatbot, but with the new feature, OpenAI is giving users a dedicated space within the app that’s wholly focused on shopping.

It comes as the company is gradually rolling out an integrated checkout within its app for US users, so consumers can discover products and complete purchases without ever leaving the app. By signposting consumers to a dedicated shopping research tool, OpenAI is doubling down on its positioning as an AI-powered personal shopper, a move that primes ChatGPT for future in-app advertising opportunities.

The news: Perplexity launches free “agentic” integrated checkout product ahead of holiday sales.

Why it matters: Following in the footsteps of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, AI platform Perplexity has partnered with PayPal so that all its US users can now make direct purchases without having to click through to retailers’ sites. It’s a move that removes friction for shoppers, so they can research a product and make a purchase in fewer steps. Perplexity’s chief business officer, Dmitry Shevelenko, told CNBC in an interview that “most people still want to do their own research,” so the platform has kept that step within consumers’ hands, and made the payments process “agentic” to simplify the buying journey.

The platform says it’s also refined its AI model to better understand purchase intent and deliver more personalised recommendations based on users’ search history. Perplexity has not disclosed whether it will earn revenue from sales completed on its platform, according to ChatGPT. It’s the latest sign that AI platforms are doubling down on shopping as a key driver for growth — and aiming to keep consumers on their platforms for longer and longer.

The news: Google CEO warns “no company is immune” if the AI bubble bursts.

Why it matters: As more and more billions of investment are poured into AI platforms and the companies that power their infrastructure, investors have been growing increasingly wary in recent weeks that we’re in an “AI bubble” that could echo the 2000 dot-com crash. Google is one of the biggest players in AI, so CEO Sundar Pichai’s warning that “no company is going to be immune, including us”, if the bubble bursts, shows that even the leaders at the forefront of the AI race are conscious that valuations are inflated and investment is extremely concentrated in AI.

Pichai did, however, draw comparisons with the dawn of the internet to show that even if AI companies are overvalued, and we’re heading for a crash, the technology itself is so fundamental that it will change the way we interact digitally forever. This view is shared by most proponents of the technology, who promise that it has the potential to reach humanlike intelligence and improve society. When AI chipmaker Nvidia beat expectations by $1.8 billion when it posted $57 billion in revenues for the third quarter last week, AI and tech stocks rallied, suggesting investors aren’t totally spooked by the idea of an AI bubble. Experts advise fashion companies to tread cautiously and continue investing in AI tools that demonstrate a clear use case for their business in the meantime.

November 18, 2025

The news: Daydream launches AI agent shopping app for iPhone.

Why it matters: Julie Bornstein’s startup Daydream, which describes itself as the “first chat-based AI shopping agent built exclusively for fashion”, is designed to make shopping easier for consumers. Previously only available in beta as a desktop website, Daydream is now launching an iPhone shopping app. It’s chosen to go deep on iOS integration by incorporating Apple’s visual intelligence — the AI-powered feature that allows users to point their cameras at objects and texts to identify them — so that Daydream users can search and shop directly from any screenshot on their phone. In practice, Daydream says this means consumers can screenshot an Instagram post and insert the image into the app to identify and shop featured products, closing the loop between visual inspiration and purchase.

November 11, 2025

The news: Snapchat owner inks deal with Perplexity to introduce AI search.

Why it matters: Snap Inc, the parent company of Snapchat, saw its shares surge up to 16% this week, after announcing a $400 million partnership with Open AI rival Perplexity AI, to integrate its AI search engine within the Snapchat app. From early 2026, Perplexity will appear in the Snapchat Chat interface, so that its nearly one billion monthly active users can ask questions on any topic and yield real-time conversational answers, powered by Perplexity’s generative AI.

The deal opens up a big new revenue stream for Snap, which will charge Perplexity $400 million over the course of a year to access its user base. Perplexity has recently been embroiled in a number of copyright infringement cases, including from News Corp, as well as a recent lawsuit from Amazon over the use of its AI agent to shop on customers’ behalves without their consent. The deal with Snap gives the platform some timely validation. In a statement announcing the news, Snap made clear its AI ambitions, saying: “The partnership underscores Snap’s growing role as a trusted platform for AI partners to reach a large, engaged, mobile-native audience.” Meanwhile, Snapchat will also use the conversations users have with Perplexity to “help enhance personalization on Snapchat”, doubling as a clear in-app ad revenue driver.

The news: Pinterest CEO says platform is exploring the potential for agentic shopping.

Why it matters: On Pinterest’s Q3 earnings call, investors wanted to know what the social platform is planning for the future of agentic commerce. CEO Bill Ready told investors that Pinterest already offers “push button-type shopping” through its partnership with Amazon, and it is gathering data to see if users actually want its AI model to “push the button for them”. The questions come a couple of weeks after Pinterest announced it will soon launch a voice-enabled AI shopping assistant, which allows Pinterest users to talk to the platform about what they’re searching and shopping for. This will yield personalized recommendations drawing from users’ saved pins and collections.

4 November 2025

The news: Nvidia becomes the world’s first $5 trillion company

Why it matters: Three years ago, before the arrival of generative AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Nvidia’s valuation was $400 billion. Last week, it became the first $5 trillion company in the world. Nvidia makes software and hardware like graphics processing units (GPUs) and chips that power AI models. CEO Jensen Huang said the company had already secured $500 billion in orders of its AI chips for the next five quarters, which sent its stock rallying. Nvidia’s record-breaking valuation signals just how much promise investors believe AI technology has — but it also comes at a time when there is limited data showing how AI has improved efficiencies. Talks of an AI bubble are rife, and every bubble has to burst. Fashion companies using AI tools may not be affected by an investor bubble bursting, but it would send shockwaves through markets if the tech doesn’t live up to its promise.

The news: Amazon cuts 14,000 jobs amid AI push

Why it matters: Last week, Amazon joined the growing cohort of blue-chip companies across the world announcing sweeping workforce cuts. The Big Tech company said it would cut up to 14,000 jobs from its corporate workforce. It comes a week after Target announced it was cutting 8% of its corporate staff (around 1,800 jobs) in its first major round of layoffs in 10 years. Although neither company directly attributed the cuts to AI, analysts have pointed to what they both have in common: the cuts are being made to white-collar roles within corporate teams, which are viewed as particularly ripe for AI automation, rather than jobs within their factories. It’ll be interesting to see if more retailers follow suit — and if this corporate focus becomes a trend.

28 October 2025

The news: Aerie releases “real people” anti-AI campaign.

Why it matters: Aerie, American Eagle Outfitters’s lounge and lingerie brand, last week released an Instagram campaign with a strong anti-AI message. “Real creativity at its best. Here’s our team, behind the scenes of our holiday shoot. No retouching. No AI. 100 per cent Aerie Real,” read the caption accompanying the campaign launch post, which features BTS shots of Aerie’s festive campaign shoot cast and crew. The brand, which previously swore off Photoshop in its campaigns, has been known to centre its messaging around human “realness”; this latest effort underscores how divisive AI-made campaigns have become.

While some advocates for AI images argue they get rid of creative constraints, the biggest backlash against brand experiments with AI-generated images so far has surrounded campaigns that seem like they could have been made without AI. Some analysts say that human-made content will soon become the ultimate marker of luxury. Will more brands follow Aerie’s lead this festive season?

The news: Meta is reportedly laying off 600 employees from its AI division.

Why it matters: Facebook and Instagram owner Meta is cutting some 600 staff from its so-called Superintelligence unit, the company’s AI division, according to multiple reports. The news was first reported by Axios, who cited an internal employee memo. “By reducing the size of our team, fewer conversations will be required to make a decision, and each person will be more load-bearing and have more scope and impact,” Meta’s chief AI officer Alexandr Wang wrote in the memo to employees, according to Axios’s report. It’s a turnaround after the company went on an AI hiring spree earlier this year, that included the hiring of Wang himself, and comes amid broader speculation that the tech industry is heading for an “AI bubble” that has seen AI companies receive mega investment before delivering on business fundamentals. Investors’ eyes will be closely watching Meta’s competitors to see if they soon follow suit.

21 October 2025

The news: Frasers Group partners with Commercetools to build out agentic AI capabilities.

Why it matters: In September, ChatGPT launched its “agentic commerce protocol” (ACP), an open-source tech standard that allows various AI agents from companies like Perplexity, Google and Microsoft to interact with each other, connect to different commerce systems and complete purchases, in partnership with Shopify and Commercetools. Now, Frasers Group is working with Commercetools to become one of the first European retailers to roll out two agentic commerce products, AI Hub and Agent Gateway.

The company said this partnership will allow shoppers to discover and purchase products from Frasers Group’s retailers like Sports Direct and Flannels directly within AI shopping channels such as ChatGPT and Google AI when their integrated checkout features land in Europe. It’s the first major announcement from a European retailer indicating an intention to launch AI shopping agents — which would search, select and purchase products on behalf of the customer — when the tech is ready.

The news: Pinterest introduces the option for users to remove AI-generated content from their feeds.

Why it matters: Pinterest’s new controls allow users to personalise their feeds and opt out of seeing AI-generated imagery across specific categories, including home decor and beauty, as well as men’s, women’s and children’s fashion. The tech company said it will also make its existing AI-generated labels more noticeable in the coming days. For Pinterest, it’s a move that indicates just how business-critical transparency is around AI, and gives us an idea of the intensity of the backlash the platform has received against such content — a highly controversial subject when it comes to creative forms like image and video.

14 October 2025

The news: Revolve launches AI-powered personal styling tool.

Why it matters: The US multi-brand retailer tapped fashion entrepreneur Sandy Sholl’s AI startup Zelig to power its new ‘Build a Look’ onsite feature. Revolve customers can now mix and match items from the site and style them on digital avatar models — all enabled by Zelig’s combination of generative AI and computer vision, as well as input from IRL stylists, the brands claim. Revolve has also launched a “digital closet” feature for shoppers to save desired items as well as those purchased. It’s the latest personalisation play from an online retailer, as they race to enhance their websites with the latest AI capabilities, to retain engagement as more shoppers adopt AI search. While individual brands like Ralph Lauren and Moncler are investing in bespoke features that replicate their in-store experiences online, for multi-brand players, retaining a USP in the age of AI is an even tougher challenge.

The news: OpenAI’s Sora app hits one million downloads, faster than ChatGPT.

Why it matters: OpenAI exec Bill Peebles, who is in charge of the tech firm’s new Sora video-generation app, announced that Sora reached one million app downloads in under five days — a faster take-up than when the company released ChatGPT in November 2022. It gives us an idea of just how high consumer demand is for visual experiments through AI — the app is currently invite-only and available exclusively to users in North America. It also comes amid creator copyright concerns over the AI’s use of their work. If the app grows rapidly before the company has proper controls and protections in place, there could soon be a vast amount of AI-generated content published with likenesses to original works.

7 October 2025

The news: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman promises creators more “granular” controls over Sora 2’s content usage.

Why it matters: Just four days after OpenAI launched Sora 2, its new invite-only video generation app, CEO Sam Altman took to his online blog to promise creators of copyrighted characters more “granular” controls, “similar to the opt-in model for likeness but with additional controls”, over the use of their creations by the app. He said the company had been “taking feedback” from rightsholders and app users and would work to “fix the missteps very quickly” as it develops OpenAI’s video generation tools. This prompt response from Altman reflects just how contentious image use for AI tools is right now, while wider regulation to protect creatives’ IP is yet to be seen. For now, legal experts say for brands wanting to experiment with AI images and video, the onus is on them to establish permissions from creators and properly attribute their use, to avoid individual copyright cases.

30 September 2025

The news: California Governor Gavin Newsom signs AI safety law.

Why it matters: It’s the first in-nation law that forces developers at major US-based AI companies to publicly disclose their AI safety and security protocols, and includes whistleblower protections for AI workers, in what analysts are saying could set a benchmark for other states to follow. But it also moves in direct opposition to Trump’s recent AI action plan, which all but deregulates the development of AI at these companies on a national level. As the state that houses much of the Silicon Valley tech companies at the forefront of AI development, California is the closest to their inner workings, but brands operating at a national level will need to watch how other regional governments react, and if this policy influences the ongoing regulation battle at a federal level.

The news: OpenAI launches ChatGPT Checkout.

Why it matters: Instant Checkout removes the friction for ChatGPT users — where they previously searched and discovered products on ChatGPT, before clicking through to make the purchase on a brand’s own site, this new feature omits that final step, shortening the purchase journey. It has big implications for brands’ partnership decisions, advertising strategies, and how they design their websites to appeal to both human customers and LLM “crawlers”. Find out more about what it means for fashion here.

23 September 2025

The news: Meta debuts three new AI smart glasses models, but demos fail.

Why it matters: At Meta’s annual Meta Connect conference on 17 September in California, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled the first AI smart glasses with an in-lens display, the Meta Display glasses, designed to replace the wearer’s need to get out their phone. But the live tech demos featured a couple of glitches. A demo of the AI glasses’ ability to interpret cooking ingredients in front of the lenses and give the wearer recipe instructions misinterpreted the selection of raw ingredients as a half-cooked dish, and the glasses failed to pick up a live Whatsapp video call demo between Zuckerberg and Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth.

Bosworth later took to Instagram to explain why the demos went wrong. It wasn’t down to the Wi-Fi, as Zuckerberg suggested onstage, but down to the amount of Meta AI glasses in close proximity during the demo, which caused a flood of traffic to Meta’s live AI server, according to Bosworth. It’s a reminder of just how many pieces of the puzzle are required for this nascent tech to function. At $799 a pop, consumers will expect their buzzy AI glasses to work, so Meta has its work cut out to fix any bugs before they become available for US consumers at the end of the month.

16 September 2025

The news: US Federal Trade Commission launches inquiry into AI ‘companions’ used by teens.

Why it matters: Tech companies including OpenAI, Meta and Google are being probed by the US regulator over AI chatbots that provide “companionship”, after a series of high-profile suicides and harm among young people linked to their interactions with the tech. The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has ordered the companies to share information about how their AI chatbots develop characters and personas, and how they monetise this kind of engagement. It’s also asking tech firms to disclose what measures they have in place to avoid harm, especially among young people, and how they handle personal data from the conversations.

Given that a primary hesitation among luxury brands in their adoption of AI is the risk of losing consumer trust, the industry should watch the case closely. As user trust in conversations with generative AI grows, analysts say this trust will extend to other online activities like shopping. But as AI regulation becomes increasingly fragmented, more of the onus is on brands to develop their own guardrails. The results of the inquiry should provide key insights for brands that are grappling with developing their own AI ethics, and could inform industry standards in future.

9 September 2025

The news: Fraudsters use AI to fake defects on resale platforms.

Why it matters: A disturbing trend has been called out on fashion social media this week — some buyers on resale platforms are using AI image generators to fake defects on received items to get refunds. On resale platforms, trust hangs in the balance between a seller’s description of their garment condition and what the item actually looks like. Although a number of the fake defect attempts called out on social media are amusingly bad, some are more realistic, thanks to recent improvements in AI image generators and their usage becoming more commonplace. When Vogue Business reached out to the main resale platforms, they said this was not yet a business concern — suggesting that this type of fraud is still in its infancy. But in order to retain trust, resale platforms will have to stay on the front foot of this new risk, which could mean investing in an enhanced verification process like videos for buyers making defect claims, which is an added cost for the platforms that could be passed onto users. Vinted told Vogue Business it is “closely monitoring the evolving use of AI among our members to ensure it remains consistent with the platform’s usage guidelines”.

The news: Shein appears to use an AI Luigi Mangione as a T-shirt model.

Why it matters: Shein has opened an internal investigation after the product image for a men’s shirt listing on its website featured a model that resembled Luigi Mangione, the person accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last year. The online retailer has now taken down the image, and told press in a statement: “The image in question was provided by a third-party vendor and was removed immediately upon discovery.” But the image was online long enough to be shared widely on social media, with speculation surrounding whether it was generated using AI. Mangione has amassed a cult following among some in the US who frame him as a folk hero, in opposition to the US healthcare system. This fuelled a surge of clothing emblazoned with Mangione’s face and name being sold online on retailers like Etsy and Ebay. Connecting the dots, this incident is a stark reminder of the importance of human oversight at brands experimenting with AI for more routine image needs like product listings. And it’s a very stark reminder of how undiscerning the AI image generators themselves are at this point — they crawl the good, the bad and the ugly of the internet to produce their images.

The news: Amazon launches Lens Live instant AI image scanning tool.

Why it matters: Amazon already had a visual search tool, Amazon Lens, which allowed customers to upload images or scan barcodes to discover products. But this new live component brings the retailer more in line with Google Lens and Pinterest Lens — shoppers can now point their phones at things they see before them in the real world, and Amazon’s app will suggest similar or matching products on its platform. The new feature will initially be rolled out to “tens of millions” shoppers in the US, and the company has not said when it will be rolled out to further US customers or into other markets. The live lens feature will also integrate with Amazon’s AI shopping assistant Rufus for more product information. It’s clear that Amazon is investing big in its AI-powered shopping features, and this represents the biggest multimodal search development on a retailer’s own platform thus far. How long until competitors follow suit?

1 September 2025

The news: ChatGPT-5 meets critique.

Why it matters: The initial buzz around the launch of ChatGPT-5 and its “PhD-level” knowledge this month has wound down, amid criticisms of the update as somewhat underwhelming. Social media users, tech influencers and journalists abound have commented on the tool’s tendency to “hallucinate” as well as only marginal improvements in its natural language style. One thing that could benefit fashion, however, is OpenAI’s big new emphasis on health — the company wants users to consult ChatGPT like their doctor. But why does this affect fashion brands? Experts tell me that when users are confiding in the tool about their health, and it’s giving them useful recommendations, their trust in the tool will increase exponentially. Trust will likely then extend to other avenues, such as shopping queries and style advice. Let’s see how this plays out in the coming months.

The news: J Crew sparks backlash for unlabelled AI campaign imagery.

Why it matters: This week, newsletter Blackbird Spyplane published a visual investigation of J Crew’s latest campaign — the launch of a collab with Vans — in which the images gave a strong indication they’d been generated by AI. Spyplane managed to uncover the creator of the images — AI photographer Sam Finn. This sparked widespread backlash on social media and within fashion communities, partly because the brand hadn’t credited the use of AI for its images, and partly because, as Spyplane put it, J Crew had “used AI to counterfeit their own vibes”. The images in question resemble J Crew’s catalogue imagery from its late ’80s to early ’90s heyday, which made the use of AI for such an authentic vintage aesthetic even more puzzling to internet critics. The brand has yet to confirm its use of AI, but it did update the campaign instagram post to credit Finn for the “digital art”. (J Crew has not responded to Vogue Business’s request for comment on the campaign.) It’s the latest in a string of AI image controversies across fashion that shows just how thorny the issue is within creative communities. Is there a way that fashion brands can get AI images right?

The news: Meta partners with Midjourney on AI images and video.

Why it matters: Meta made its first move into AI image generation last year, when it launched image generation tool Imagine on its Facebook, Instagram and Messenger platforms. Now, it’s partnering with Midjourney — which is widely viewed as one of the best AI image generation tools on the market — to “bring beauty to billions”, according to chief AI officer Alexandr Wang. It’s the latest move from Meta in its huge AI investment push, and could now enable it to develop image and video products that compete with Google’s Veo and OpenAI’s Sora — and could impact the visual content consumers grow more accustomed to seeing on its social platforms.

26 August 2025

The news: Meta is implementing an AI hiring freeze, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.

Why it matters: After spending the past few months hiring over 50 AI researchers, Meta has hit pause, the tech giant confirmed to The Wall Street Journal. The hiring freeze coincides with a wider restructuring of Meta’s AI teams, which involves splitting them into four divisions. As AI becomes an increasing priority, businesses are not only competing in an AI talent war, but they are having to figure out the internal infrastructures, too. Already, investors are concerned about the stock-based compensation tech giants are offering AI talent, which could dilute shareholder value.

The news: Google adds agentic capabilities to AI Mode search function.

Why it matters: The agentic update allows AI Mode to make restaurant reservations with multiple constraints and preferences (“I only have an hour and need a quick lunch spot, any suggestions?”). The feature will soon expand to local service appointments and event tickets. The update signals a major step towards AI assistants functioning as agents and navigating real-world systems, rather than just a smart search engine. AI Mode has previously only been available in the US, the UK and India, but now Google has rolled it out to over 180 additional countries.

The news: Meta is offering AI translations for creators to expand their global reach.

Why it matters: Meta AI translations — a tool that dubs and lip-syncs reels on Facebook and Instagram into another language — will now be available for English to Spanish and Spanish to English translations, with further languages in the pipeline. The move has the potential to help creators grow audiences in new markets, boosting the creator economy even further.

19 August 2025

The news: ChatGPT-5 launches for businesses.

Why it matters: Hot on the heels of OpenAI’s rollout of ChatGPT-5 to consumers and developers last week, the company has extended the model to its enterprise customers. Spanish bank BBVA and Zara owner Inditex have already adopted the updated tool — Inditex data and AI lead Oscar Mateos took to LinkedIn to say, “GPT-5 feels less like a tool and more like an expert collaborator who’s always one step ahead.” Who will be the first luxury conglomerate to adopt the upgraded tech?

13 August 2025

The news: Stitch Fix announces AI shopping updates in personalisation push.

Why it matters: Stitch Fix is seeking a competitive edge as several dedicated, AI-powered personal styling startups burst onto the scene — including Daydream, which was founded by former Stitch Fix COO Julie Bornstein, and has so far raised $50 million in funding to support its development. Stitch Fix has previously deployed AI to understand personal style and predict trends, but claims that a new suite of AI-powered personal styling features will “increase personalisation, convenience and inspiration” for its users. The updated features include: an AI style assistant for customers, which uses generative AI to suggest outfit inspiration based on the taste profile it builds from their data over time; a “Stylist Connect” platform for customers to chat to human stylists; virtual try-on “personalised AI style visualisation”; and AI design integration for its private brands.

12 August 2025

The news: OpenAI launches ChatGPT-5, touting its knowledge as a “major upgrade” from ChatGPT-4.

Why it matters: We’ve been waiting for this update for a while (the last GPT-4 update was in March 2023), and the developments within OpenAI’s technology are a key indicator of how far AI has come, and what brands should know it can do. In OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s words, “GPT-3 sort of felt like talking to a high school student, GPT-4, maybe it was like talking to a college student. But with GPT-5, now it’s like talking to an expert, a PhD-level expert in anything, any area you need, on demand.” OpenAI also says its new model beats the LLMs from competitors Google, X and Anthropic. Perhaps most interestingly for brands, Open AI says the new model is more conversational than ever, which could have implications for customer interactions with their brands both in ChatGPT search for shopping, and their chatbot interactions.

The news: Pinterest CEO pitches the platform as an “AI-enabled shopping assistant”.

Why it matters: In the company’s second-quarter earnings call, Pinterest CEO Bill Ready said the app’s users don’t necessarily think of it as a shopping platform, but that its experiments with AI mean they’re actually getting proactive recommendations for products that “align with their taste and their style, the way a really great personal shopping assistant would”. Ready said the platform is also using multimodal AI (combining text and images), AI for visual search, and AI for conversational search. It’s one to watch for brands, as consumers move to more niche social platforms for product discovery.

The news: Google says AI search is increasing, not decreasing, traffic to websites — but doesn’t share data to back up its claims.

Why it matters: Some industry analysts suggest that the rise in AI-powered conversational search is decreasing organic traffic to websites. This week, Google rebuffed these claims as “inaccurate”. “Average click quality has increased and we’re actually sending slightly more quality clicks to websites than a year ago (by quality clicks, we mean those where users don’t quickly click back — typically a signal that a user is interested in the website),” Google’s head of search Liz Reid wrote in a blog post. Yet the blog cited no data — and the reports it was challenging do. Google isn’t the only AI-powered search engine, either. ChatGPT is increasingly being used for consumers’ shopping searches. AI optimisation is emerging among marketers to try to increase their sites’ chances of appearing in search — here’s what brands need to know about the nascent practice.

5 August 2025

The news: Mark Zuckerberg says those without AI smart glasses will be at a “significant cognitive disadvantage” in future.

Why it matters: Meta had a big week last week, beating revenue and profit expectations in its second-quarter earnings. It’s good news for CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who has been investing heavily in AI, and will be wanting to reassure investors that the company is in a position to do so. Zuckerberg seized the good news opportunity to go in even harder on the company’s AI ambitions. Not only did he announce that the company’s AI models will soon reach human-like “superintelligence”, but he reinforced his belief that AI-powered glasses will be the primary way humans interact with AI in coming years.

“I continue to think that glasses are basically going to be the ideal form factor for AI," Zuckerberg told investors on the earnings call. “I think in the future, if you don’t have glasses that have AI — or some way to interact with AI — you’re probably going to be at a pretty significant cognitive disadvantage.” Meta has something of a first-mover advantage in the world of smart glasses, but Google, OpenAI and Apple are among the other Big Tech players investing in wearables’ AI promise. Read more about Meta’s smart glasses moves here.

The news: Experts say AI is developing much faster than expected.

Why it matters: We’re used to tech CEOs shouting about the potential of AI. But when experts including Nobel Prize winner Geoffrey Hinton say the technology is developing much faster than they ever anticipated, it adds even more fuel to the fire. Examples of AI models’ accelerating developments are everywhere: this week, Meta’s model began correcting itself.

Since Trump more or less deregulated the sector in the US, there’s barely anything standing in these companies’ way. This means global brands need to get to work on developing internal AI guardrails, especially if they’re handling lots of consumer data across jurisdictions (like the EU) that are stricter on AI.

The news: Apple says it is “very open” to acquisitions this year to catch up to competitors on AI.

Why it matters: Apple has got some stick for being slower to the so-called ‘AI race’ than its Big Tech peers, which is mostly down to the company’s prioritisation of protecting consumer data and privacy. At the company’s earnings this week, though, CEO Tim Cook was eager to show investors it’s willing to spend more. “We’re very open to M&A that accelerates our roadmap,” he said. “We are not stuck on a certain size company, although the ones that we have acquired thus far this year are small in nature.” Much of the company’s acquisitions so far have focused on music, events and AI. It’s worth keeping an eye out for any wearables-related acquisitions in the coming months, given the ubiquity of the company’s audio devices.

29 July 2025

The news: Google launches AI shopping mode in the UK.

Why it matters: Google launched its AI Mode search feature for shopping in the US in May, and the UK rollout this week indicates its plans to expand the number of consumers who shop using the feature — and fast. AI Mode uses Google’s generative AI tool to produce a chat-style interface for users, giving them a conversational search experience in which they can converse back and forth, and ask more specific questions. Three other AI shopping features rolled out on Google in the US — virtual try-on, Gemini-powered personalised shopping recommendations, and agentic price-match comparisons — are yet to be announced in the UK.

It’s particularly relevant for shopping. Some 80 per cent of consumers now rely on AI-written results for at least 40 per cent of their searches, according to Bain & Co. All this means ad agencies and marketing teams have shifted their focuses from SEO (search engine optimisation) to what’s been coined “AIO” (AI optimisation). Learn more about emerging AIO practices in fashion here.

The news: UK government signs “strategic partnership” with OpenAI in AI investment push.

Why it matters: The UK is eager not to get left behind in the so-called ‘AI race’ between the US, Europe and China, and this is the latest sign it’s keen to attract more investment to Britain’s AI sector. The government’s plans to use more of OpenAI’s technology to deliver public services will likely mean that the technology is trained on citizen data. In turn, OpenAI is planning on hiring more UK staff for its research and engineering teams, and increasing the size of its London office, as per the plan. ChatGPT maker OpenAI is currently one of the most powerful companies in the world, and President Trump’s new AI Action Plan shows how eager each government is to persuade the tech company — and its competitors — to develop their tech on their soil.

The news: Trump unveils US AI Action Plan and signs three AI executive orders.

Why it matters: The 28-page ‘AI Action Plan’ aims to build out the country’s AI infrastructure, cement America’s dominance in the industry and prohibit all federal agencies from using AI contractors that don’t comply with the White House’s definition of “ideological neutrality”. The new policies reverse several Biden-era federal AI safeguards related to DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) and climate change, block state-level regulations on AI and further relax export rules so that global companies rely deeper on US-built AI. The move to get rid of existing AI regulations places further onus on individual companies to establish their own AI guardrails, especially if they operate across countries and jurisdictions. The US-centric policy also presents key challenges for fashion’s global supply chain and consumer base, which you can read more about here.

22 July 2025

The news: OpenAI has shown some brands a pilot of a checkout feature that would enable users to complete purchases within its ChatGPT platform, according to a report by the Financial Times. It would charge brands commission for sales made this way.

Why it matters: When users search for products, ChatGPT currently shows recommendations with links to click through to brands’ own e-commerce sites. Bypassing this step opens up a clear revenue stream for OpenAI, but could significantly impact brands’ online sales. Those whose websites are picked up easier by ChatGPT would hold a significant advantage over those whose aren’t. No one’s quite sure what makes large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT tick yet, but there are some key practices emerging that could help brands optimise for AI search.

The news: WeTransfer has U-turned on plans to use UGC to train AI, after a revision in its terms of service caused widespread backlash.

Why it matters: Copyright protection has long been in place to safeguard creatives like photographers against their work being used without permission. Tech companies’ training of AI models on their work is proving a thorny issue within the fashion and creative industries, as it poses a risk of copies, duplication and direct competition — ultimately threatening their source of income. Given that WeTransfer is widely used within the creative industries, the company’s U-turn represents the perceived reputational risk that openly training AI models on creative work can cause.

The news: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said the company will build a data centre “the size of Manhattan” to fuel its planned development of AI products.

Why it matters: It’s the latest in a string of moves from Meta — which owns Instagram, Whatsapp and Facebook — that demonstrate the scale of the investment it’s making in developing AI products. Data centres are hugely expensive to build and maintain, and the size of what Zuckerberg is suggesting would cost billions of dollars. Zuckerberg has been very bullish on the potential for the company’s AI smart glasses in particular, and talk of Meta buying a stake in its Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses co-creator EssilorLuxottica has intensified in the last month.

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