Latest news with #imagery
Asharq Al-Awsat
07-05-2025
- Business
- Asharq Al-Awsat
Zalando Uses AI to Speed Up Marketing Campaigns, Cut Costs
European online fashion retailer Zalando is using generative artificial intelligence to produce imagery faster for its app and website, it said on Wednesday, as AI shakes up the fashion industry and cuts costs. Zalando, which sells branded clothes, shoes, and accessories across 25 markets in Europe, is using AI to produce imagery quickly enough to respond to short-lived fashion trends spread on social media. It is also developing AI-generated "digital twins" of models to use in its marketing. "We are using AI to be able to be reactive," Matthias Haase, vice president of content solutions at Zalando, told Reuters in an interview. Using generative AI cuts the time needed to produce imagery to around three to four days from six to eight weeks, and reduces costs by 90%, Haase said, adding the AI-generated content drives greater engagement from customers. "It's not because of AI content that is better than human-created content, it is really about how new, how relevant it is to our customers," Haase added. Around 70% of Zalando's editorial campaign images were AI-generated in the fourth quarter of last year as it has increased use of the technology. AI-generated images illustrated Zalando's recap of the year's biggest trends, including "brat summer", "mob wife", and double denim. For an industry used to costly, meticulously planned fashion shoots on sets or in far-flung locations, the prospect of using AI to speed up production and use marketing money more efficiently is of particular appeal to retailers with far smaller budgets than the big, luxury players. Zalando is the latest retailer to try out AI-generated digital twins of models, after Sweden's H&M in March said it created digital twins in collaboration with a modelling agency. The AI-generated three-dimensional replicas enable Zalando to feature a model in a campaign and show an exact replica of that model in the app's product pages, without needing to take hundreds of photos. Asked how generative AI could affect job prospects for fashion photographers, Haase said traditional fashion shoots will still be needed, but that photographers and other creatives will also have to adapt to using AI tools. "Creative people fear that AI makes creatives redundant," Haase said. "I don't see that at all, to be honest... I see it rather that creative minds have now, instead of two hands, six hands."
CNA
07-05-2025
- Business
- CNA
Zalando uses AI to speed up marketing campaigns, cut costs
LONDON :European online fashion retailer Zalando is using generative artificial intelligence to produce imagery faster for its app and website, it said on Wednesday, as AI shakes up the fashion industry and cuts costs. Zalando, which sells branded clothes, shoes, and accessories across 25 markets in Europe, is using AI to produce imagery quickly enough to respond to short-lived fashion trends spread on social media. It is also developing AI-generated "digital twins" of models to use in its marketing. "We are using AI to be able to be reactive," Matthias Haase, vice president of content solutions at Zalando, told Reuters in an interview. Using generative AI cuts the time needed to produce imagery to around three to four days from six to eight weeks, and reduces costs by 90 per cent, Haase said, adding the AI-generated content drives greater engagement from customers. "It's not because of AI content that is better than human-created content, it is really about how new, how relevant it is to our customers," Haase added. Around 70 per cent of Zalando's editorial campaign images were AI-generated in the fourth quarter of last year as it has increased use of the technology. AI-generated images illustrated Zalando's recap of the year's biggest trends, including "brat summer", "mob wife", and double denim. For an industry used to costly, meticulously planned fashion shoots on sets or in far-flung locations, the prospect of using AI to speed up production and use marketing money more efficiently is of particular appeal to retailers with far smaller budgets than the big, luxury players. Zalando is the latest retailer to try out AI-generated digital twins of models, after Sweden's H&M in March said it created digital twins in collaboration with a modelling agency. The AI-generated three-dimensional replicas enable Zalando to feature a model in a campaign and show an exact replica of that model in the app's product pages, without needing to take hundreds of photos. Asked how generative AI could affect job prospects for fashion photographers, Haase said traditional fashion shoots will still be needed, but that photographers and other creatives will also have to adapt to using AI tools. "Creative people fear that AI makes creatives redundant," Haase said. "I don't see that at all, to be honest... I see it rather that creative minds have now, instead of two hands, six hands."
The Guardian
07-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Guardian
Women behind the lens: ‘The dream had a quiet strangeness to it'
K e Go Beile Leithlo (I've Got My Eyes On You) is part of a project called Ditoro , meaning 'dreams' in my home language, Setswana. It is a growing body of work exploring archival imagery through the lens of dreams and memory – a space where the past and present blur, where ancestral fragments reappear in unexpected ways and where dreams become portals into untold stories. This piece depicts a dream I had a while back that lingered long after I woke. In the dream, two figures commanded the space: a woman sitting gracefully on a dark leather couch, her white dress billowing around her, with a lace structure rising from her shoulders like wings. She was calm, majestic, almost otherworldly. Beside her stood a tall figure – a man, confident, dressed in white trousers and a flowing blouse, topped with a white hat. An enigmatic guardian or a silent observer. The dream had a quiet strangeness to it. There was a woman peeking from behind the couch; not threatening, but curious. In the dream, I was in deep conversation with the figures in the foreground. Though I can no longer recall the exact words, they spoke in whispers. After I woke, I realised that the two figures in the dream were my maternal grandparents who had passed away many years ago. I could only identify them through family photographs. The dream not only inspired the collage but the entire Ditoro project. To create the work, I used a combination of imagery found in public archives, photographs I've taken and my own family archives. I carefully selected the images based on energy, gesture and expression. I cut, rearranged and layered the elements to recreate the surreal mood of the dream. Each decision – from costume to posture – was intuitive, like following a thread back to something half remembered. Ke Go Beile Leitlho whispers of unseen forces at play, of histories watching, waiting and holding their gaze long after the moment has passed. This work is personal. It's about listening to dreams as messages and using art to make sense of them. Through Ditoro , I'm learning to trust what my inner world is trying to say – and offering those visions back as stories worth telling. Tshepiso Moropa is a collage artist based in Johannesburg. She is one of four winners of the V&A Parasol Foundation prize for women in photography 2025. Her work will be exhibited at a group show at the Copeland Gallery, London from 16-25 May
