Fashion Tech Boom 2.0
Background:
After years of disillusionment with fashion tech, investors are once again excited about its potential, but with a very different mindset to the hype-fuelled boom of the last decade.
From AI-powered personal styling apps to virtual try-on tools and personalised search engines, a wave of start-ups is gaining traction – and big backing – by offering real technological solutions to long-standing fashion industry problems.
In this episode, senior e-commerce correspondent Malique Morris joins The Debrief to explore how fashion tech is finally growing up, and which companies are leading this more grounded, results-driven wave of innovation.
Key Insights:
In the previous fashion tech boom, investors were heavily investing in e-commerce startups with little true innovation. 'DTC brands … positioned themselves as tech companies because they sold goods online, but there was nothing really revolutionary about them listing products on a website. And I don't know how investors didn't cop to that,' says Morris. Today's backers are more discerning, favouring startups with clear technical roadmaps and founders who can evolve their product in meaningful ways.
Investor interest in fashion tech reignited thanks to the rise of generative AI. As Morris explains, venture capital had been sitting on the sidelines during a broader funding freeze, but AI's real-world applications reignited excitement. 'Startups like Daydream are building a platform for personalised search using AI tools from companies like OpenAI and Google, and they want to be the ChatGPT for fashion and be disruptive in the way that ChatGPT has changed how we use the internet,' says Morris. 'What was once a dream is now closer to being tangible and investors want to be the first ones in on that.'
Today's investors are looking beyond flashy pitches and prioritising founders with real technical know-how. 'Something that is really separating the people who are just trying to raise money and not breaking through from those who are, are having some sort of technical experience, technical expertise,' says Morris. With the complexity of AI and other advanced tools, investors want to back teams that can build efficiently and with minimal lift. 'They want to back founders who know what they're doing,' he adds.
While new fashion tech apps offer highly personalised experiences, their complexity may limit mainstream appeal. The question of scale is still unanswered: 'There may be a billion people out there who want to do that… There may only be a million. We don't know that just yet.'
Additional Resources:
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Business Insider
an hour ago
- Business Insider
OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Says GPT-6 Is Already in Development
Microsoft-backed (MSFT) AI firm OpenAI recently launched GPT-5, but CEO Sam Altman has already announced that GPT-6 is in development, and that it's coming sooner than expected. While he didn't give a release date, Altman made it clear that GPT-6 will be more advanced and personal. Indeed, it won't just respond to your questions but it will learn your preferences, habits, and personality to tailor its responses to you. According to Altman, the key to this personalization is memory. The system needs to remember who you are and what you like in order to offer a more meaningful experience. Elevate Your Investing Strategy: Take advantage of TipRanks Premium at 50% off! Unlock powerful investing tools, advanced data, and expert analyst insights to help you invest with confidence. Altman also said that future versions of ChatGPT will follow a new executive order from the Trump administration that requires federal AI tools to remain politically neutral but customizable. This means users will be able to adjust the AI's tone to match their views. At the same time, Altman admitted that GPT-5's initial rollout received backlash after users said that it felt cold and less helpful than earlier models. In response, OpenAI quietly updated the model to make its tone warmer, which is an improvement that Altman believes has made a big difference. Despite progress, there are still privacy concerns. In fact, Altman noted that temporary memory in ChatGPT isn't yet encrypted, which raises risks when handling sensitive information. Nevertheless, he said that encryption is likely coming, though no date has been set. In addition, when looking further ahead, Altman is exploring brain-computer interfaces, where AI could respond to your thoughts directly. However, while his team continues to improve ChatGPT for everyday use, Altman admitted that chatbot performance may have peaked for now. Is MSFT Stock a Buy? Turning to Wall Street, analysts have a Strong Buy consensus rating on MSFT stock based on 34 Buys and one Hold assigned in the last three months. In addition, the average MSFT price target of $623.60 per share implies 22.4% upside potential.
Tom's Guide
3 hours ago
- Tom's Guide
I just created 5 apps using GPT-5 and it's so easy it feels like it should be illegal — here's how to do it
If you've ever had an idea for an app but it's never gone past the brainstorming stage because you lacked coding skills, now is your chance to make your apps a reality. With ChatGPT-5, building an app is as simple as describing it. In other words, natural language is the new programming language, and you're no longer limited by your coding skills (or lack thereof) to go from concept to functional prototype in just a few minutes. During the live stream of the GPT-5 model's launch, Sam Altman and his team made coding look way too easy. As someone who did poorly in computer science class in college, I decided to put ChatGPT-5 to the what happened when I took five totally different app ideas, from a meme generator to a personal wellness journal, and asked ChatGPT-5 to build them from scratch. No coding. No wireframing. Just clear descriptions and a few follow-up questions. The results were wild. I created five working apps in less than 30 minutes — total! Complete with mobile builds, custom icons and working UI logic, the apps I developed were available in lite form (web only) and ready for mobile. Had I wanted, I could have used outside software and formatted them to be sold in the app store. While that might be next, here's a look at how it all works, what I built and why GPT-5 may have just changed how we develop software forever. MoodMate helps you process your feelings by turning quick notes into short reflections, complete with calming tips like breathing exercises. You type how you're feeling, and the AI responds with thoughtful insights to help you reset and reflect. It's like journaling, but with a built-in emotional coach and it takes less than a minute. Enter whatever ingredients you have on hand (even the random stuff) and SnackStack spins up three recipes you can actually make. Whether you've got eggs, spinach and hot sauce or just pasta and ketchup, this app finds a way. As a parent, I've been thinking about this one for a while. It's great this app is on mobile (and not just desktop) for story time on-the-go. Let your child choose a character, setting and lesson the story will teach. Then, watch as StorySpark generates a one-of-a-kind bedtime tale. It even reads the story aloud using your device's speech function. Get instant access to breaking news, the hottest reviews, great deals and helpful tips. TaskTamer takes your big goal (write a novel, launch a side hustle, train for a 5K) and breaks it into weekly action plans. Just tell it your goal, timeline and how much time you can commit. It turns ambition into a step-by-step roadmap you can actually follow. Upload any image and MemeMachine instantly suggests six funny captions, complete with that classic meme-style formatting. You can tweak the text, move it around and download a ready-to-share meme in seconds. It's humor-on-demand with zero Photoshop skills required. The fastest way to test or share your app is to create a standalone HTML file. During the testing process, I created several different apps and immediately tried them by doing this version because you can quickly test the app by running it locall (no installs). Running the app in your browswer uses mock AI output for demoing and stores everything in your browser with localStorage This is perfect for user testing, internal previews or when mobile device setup isn't an option (e.g., slow Expo Go connections, locked-down Wi-Fi networks).Go this route if you just want to see your app in action and plan on only using it on your computer. If you think your app is so good that you want to upload to the Apple app store or Google Play, then this is the route for you. However, keep in mind there are a few extra steps. You'll need the following: For these tests, I created each app in the following versions: Same prompt. Same UI logic. Two completely different platforms. That's the power of GPT-5. All you need to do is describe your idea once and once it's built, you can deploy your app in any form, anywhere. If you are stuck with any of this because you have no idea where to start. Don't worry, GPT-5 will walk you through everything. You can upload screenshots or ask your questions directly and it will troubleshoot the entire process until you get your app uploaded to the app store of your choice. The leap in simplicity comes from three things: When I first started creating my apps and GPT-5 started throwing words at me like "localStorage," "Expo Go," and "download folder location" (okay, I knew that one), I wondered if any of this was worth it. So, when I got frustrated I let the AI know. It responded by telling me it would "go slower" and that it was "here to help every step of the way." That was reassuring even though I was still feeling like my minimal coding skills would never allow these apps to come to fruition. But, GPT-5 urged me to stay the course and since it has the patience of a non-human, we were in it to win it. Ultimately, generating five ready-to-use apps. GPT-5 turns app building into something as easy as writing an email. You describe what you want, it creates a prototype. You tweak the tone, logic or UX in plain English, and it rebuilds it. The hardest part isn't the coding anymore, it's coming up with the ideas, which GPT-5 can help with, too. So if you've ever said 'I wish there was an app that…' — guess what? There can be. In about five minutes. Follow Tom's Guide on Google News to get our up-to-date news, how-tos, and reviews in your feeds. Make sure to click the Follow button.
CNET
7 hours ago
- CNET
What Worries Americans About AI? Politics, Jobs and Friends
Americans have a lot of worries about artificial intelligence. Like job losses and energy use. Even more so: political chaos. All of that is a lot to blame on one new technology that was an afterthought to most people just a few years ago. Generative AI, in the few years since ChatGPT burst onto the scene, has become so ubiquitous in our lives that people have strong opinions about what it means and what it can do. A Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted Aug. 13-18 and released Tuesday dug into some of those specific concerns. It focused on the worries people had about the technology, and the general public has often had a negative perception. In this survey, 47% of respondents said they believe AI is bad for humanity, compared with 31% who disagreed with that statement. Compare those results with a Pew Research Center survey, released in April, that found 35% of the public believed AI would have a negative impact on the US, versus 17% who believed it would be positive. That sentiment flipped when Pew asked AI experts the same question. The experts were more optimistic: 56% said they expected a positive impact, and only 15% expected a negative one. Don't miss any of CNET's unbiased tech content and lab-based reviews. Add us as a preferred Google source on Chrome. The Reuters/Ipsos poll specifically highlights some of the immediate, tangible concerns many people have with the rapid expansion of generative AI technology, along with the less-specific fears about runaway robot intelligence. The numbers indicate more concern than comfort with those bigger-picture, long-term questions, like whether AI poses a risk to the future of humankind (58% agree, 20% disagree). But even larger portions of the American public are worried about more immediate issues. Foremost among those immediate issues is the potential that AI will disrupt political systems, with 77% of those polled saying they were concerned. AI tools, particularly image and video generators, have the potential to create distorting or manipulative content (known as deepfakes) that can mislead voters or undermine trust in political information, particularly on social media. Most Americans, at 71%, said they were concerned AI would cause too many people to lose jobs. The impact of AI on the workforce is expected to be significant, with some companies already talking about being "AI-first." AI developers and business leaders tout the technology's ability to make workers more efficient. But other polls have also shown how common fears of job loss are. The April Pew survey found 64% of Americans and 39% of AI experts thought there would be fewer jobs in the US in 20 years because of AI. Read more: AI Essentials: 29 Ways You Can Make Gen AI Work for You, According to Our Experts But the Reuters/Ipsos poll also noted two other worries that have become more mainstream: the effect of AI on personal relationships and energy consumption. Two-thirds of respondents in the poll said they were concerned about AI's use as a replacement for in-person relationships. Generative AI's human-like tone (which comes from the fact that it was trained on, and therefore replicates, stuff written by humans) has led many users to treat chatbots and characters as if they were, well, actual friends. This is widespread enough that OpenAI, when it rolled out the new GPT-5 model this month, had to bring back an older model that had a more conversational tone because users felt like they'd lost a friend. Even OpenAI CEO Sam Altman acknowledged that users treating AI as a kind of therapist or life coach made him "uneasy." The energy demands of AI are also significant and a concern for 61% of Americans surveyed. The demand comes from the massive amounts of computing power required to train and run large language models like OpenAI's ChatGPT and Google's Gemini. The data centers that house these computers are like giant AI factories, and they're taking up space, electricity and water in a growing number of places.
