Julie Bornstein's Daydream Is Redefining AI Fashion Shopping

Forbes

25-06-2025

Daydream landing page
Despite billions in tech upgrades, fashion e-commerce is still cluttered, impersonal, and wasteful—especially in the emerging category of AI fashion shopping. With $50 million in funding and a team of retail-tech veterans, Daydream is using agentic AI to make online shopping feel natural, personal—and more sustainable.
Fashion E-Commerce Is Broken: Why AI Fashion Shopping Needs a New Interface
For all the industry's talk of innovation, shopping for fashion online still feels stuck in 2013: dropdown menus, broken filters, and endless scroll. Even as brands tout "personalization," return rates remain sky-high, and shopping often feels more like work than discovery.
Billions of dollars in returns—many of which end up in landfills—are a symptom of a deeper problem: digital discovery isn't built for how people think or shop. Daydream aims to change that, not by tweaking the old interface, but by rethinking fashion discovery from the ground up, powered by AI.
Julie Bornstein has spent decades at the intersection of retail and technology: launching Nordstrom.com, scaling Sephora's digital business, serving as COO at Stitch Fix, and founding AI-native shopping app THE YES (which sold to Pinterest). She co-founded Daydream alongside Lisa Yamner Green (Chief Brands Officer), Dan Cary (Chief Product Officer), Richard Kim (Chief Strategy Officer), and Maria Belousova (Chief Technology Officer), all of whom bring deep experience from companies like Amazon, Google, Pinterest, Farfetch, and ClassPass.
The Daydream Team
Now, backed by a $50 million mega seed round and a seasoned founding team, Bornstein is pursuing her most ambitious vision yet: rebuilding the way fashion is discovered online.
Daydream is not a retailer. It doesn't hold inventory or process transactions. Instead, it uses an affiliate model: redirecting users to brand or retailer websites to complete purchases and earning a commission on each sale.
With more than 200 retail partners and 8,000 brands already integrated—and merchant onboarding currently free—Daydream has scale from day one. But the big question remains: can an affiliate model sustain a platform of this depth? Will brands eventually need to pay for enhanced placement or data access?
For now, Daydream is betting on relevance over rent. No ads. No pay-to-play. Just personalized results designed to convert based on actual user intent.
Daydream's conversational shopping engine is powered by an ensemble of AI models—including OpenAI, Google Gemini, open-source tools, and proprietary components. Each one specializes in fashion-specific domains: silhouette, fit, fabric, occasion, shopper behavior.
Daydream CX page
It's also an example of agentic AI: systems that don't just generate outputs, but interpret intent, take action, and guide users through decisions. Unlike most AI bots retrofitted onto retail sites, Daydream was built chat-first and vertically tuned from day one.
CTO Maria Belousova says the team is already working on a new architecture that will orchestrate multiple models in real time, improving speed and specificity.
First-time users create a Style Passport by entering key details: name, sizing, price range, and brand preferences. From there, Daydream learns in real time based on searches, clicks, and saved items.
Users can type prompts like 'I need a dress for a rooftop wedding in Paris,' upload reference images, or refine results using the 'Say More' button. Items can be saved into collections, which generate daily personalized edits.
The chat interface isn't a side feature—it is the primary navigation. No dropdowns. No keyword guesswork. Just intent-driven discovery.
E-commerce has long overpromised and underdelivered on personalization—from virtual try-ons to product page videos. Daydream is different.
Its personalization engine is built into the system's core logic. The Style Passport evolves with every action, and upcoming features will allow users to issue explicit directives: 'No four-inch heels,' or 'Only show ethical brands.'
Better personalization also has real-world impact. In my 2021 TechCrunch article, I wrote that personalization could become one of retail's most scalable sustainability tools—reducing returns, improving fit confidence, and minimizing waste. Combined with 3D virtual fitting and intelligent matching, Daydream could push the industry closer to that goal. But accuracy still depends on brands improving their product data.
As I argued then, personalization alone won't solve retail's sustainability problem unless the underlying inventory data, size standards, and fulfillment infrastructure also evolve. AI is a powerful tool—but it can't compensate for broken pipes downstream. Daydream has the potential to lead that shift, but it can't do it alone.
Soon, Daydream will allow users to:
The future of shopping is collaborative, not solitary, and Daydream wants to power that shift with AI at the core.
Daydream isn't the only company chasing the future of AI-powered shopping. Startups like Deft and Cherry are building multimodal search tools. Amazon and Google are layering AI across shopping interfaces.
But most of these tools are horizontal, retrofitted, or inspiration-only. Pinterest, LTK, and Instagram offer content, not context. Legacy discovery platforms may have scale, but they offer zero personalization.
Daydream's edge is vertical focus: fashion-specific AI models, a clean chat-first UX, and a deep commitment to building around user intent.
Daydream isn't just a product story—it's a signal that the future of fashion discovery is interface-first. In the same way search engines transformed how we navigate information and apps transformed how we manage life, Daydream is betting that chat-based, personalized, and agentic discovery will become the new standard for how we shop—and AI fashion shopping will become the default expectation.
If successful, it could spark a broader shift in retail—from transaction-driven platforms to intent-driven experiences, from passive scrolling to intelligent assistance—and solidify AI fashion shopping as the next great leap in e-commerce. If other industries follow fashion's lead, Daydream may be remembered not just as a shopping tool but as the start of a new era of AI-native consumer interfaces.
[Read more on how AI is transforming retail at Forbes and how fashion startups are embracing new shopping interfaces.)