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The Glossy Podcast
How AI search is changing how we shop — plus, Nike returns to Amazon, Steve Madden v. Adidas, and Maria Grazia Chiuri leaves Dior
00:46:09
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- [00:02]
Glossy Podcast Host
Hello Glossy Podcast listeners. As you kick off 2025 and work toward your aggressive revenue goals, one digital marketing platform partner is all you need and that's listrack. Listrack is your beauty and fashion revenue insider. List Track understands the beauty and fashion space and is the proven go to partner for revenue creation Powering personalized consumer connections for leading retailers and brands like Peter Thomas Rothschild, Anastasia Beverly Hills, John Varvatos and Oscar de la Renta, Listrack's powerful AI integration with Shopify allows you to access and unify your customer data to deliver personalized cross channel messages that resonate, engage and inspire your customers. Partnering with ListTrack gives you access to beauty and fashion experts who act as an extension of marketing teams, sharing proprietary industry benchmarks, data and real time behaviors and trends. Learn more@listtrack.com that's L I S T R A K.com.
- [01:10]
Jamie Elden
I think it's going to be huge in 25 and in 26 because the beauty in the fashion industry love to put high powerful creative that they've invested in in front of consumers through all channels. RCS allows them now to leverage all the investment they've made on this content and use it in a mobile channel.
- [01:31]
Danny Parisi
That's Jamie Elden, Chief Revenue Officer at List Track, our sponsor on this episode.
- [01:37]
Zofia Zvyglinska
Of the Glossy Podcast. Later in the show custom talks with.
- [01:40]
Danny Parisi
Jamie about how beauty brands are using personalization, working to stand out and new creative formats on the horizon. Hello and welcome back to the Glossy Podcast. I'm your host, senior fashion reporter Danny Parisi and I'm here with our international reporter Zofia Zvyglinska. Hello Zofia, thank you for joining.
- [02:07]
Zofia Zvyglinska
Hi. Lovely to be on again.
- [02:09]
Danny Parisi
We have a fun episode today. We're going to be talking about some news from the week. First we're going to talk about Nike returning to Amazon and what that means for Nike's kind of new direction with its DTC business. We will also talk about a lawsuit between Steve Madden and Adidas, which I think we can touch on Adidas sort of zealousness with copyright protection. They've had a couple lawsuits recently. And then lastly we're going to talk about Maria Grazia Chiiri who is leaving Dior, which was announced literally like just before we started recording this, which is Thursday morning. And then later in the episode, Zofia, you and I had a great discussion about generative AI in search. We tested out some of Google's new AI search tools, including AI Tryon, which went a little off the rails but kind of in an enlightening way. So that's later in the episode. That was fun. I'm glad we recorded that.
- [03:01]
Zofia Zvyglinska
It was a fun one. Yeah, I think there's a lot of interesting segments there and some very surprising, but not exactly unsurprising AI mistakes coming as well.
- [03:11]
Danny Parisi
Surprising in the moment. And then the more I thought about it, the more it made sense. But yes, that will be the second half of the episode after the break. But first, let's dive into some news from this week. I want to start with talking about Nike, which announced this week that they're going back to Amazon after six years of not selling directly on Amazon. I think they sold on Amazon for about two years and they did that in an effort to kind of combat counterfeits by providing like the official version of their shoes. And then they dropped out of Amazon for six years and then now they're coming back. I think third party merchants that are selling Nike product on Amazon have until July 19th to sell through their inventory and then they have to stop selling. So there's two kind of points I want to talk about here, which is one, the concern about counterfeits and rule breaking on Amazon's marketplace is one a lot of brands have mentioned to me as part of what keeps them away from Amazon is the fact that it's full of dupes and knockoffs and sometimes outright counterfeits. And also kind of just you're mixed in with so many other things, which is not always a great merchandising experience. And then the other thing is Nike's wholesale strategy. They did a big pivot to away from wholesale fully in on DTC in like 2019 and 2020. And they have since been sort of rolling that back bit by bit. And so this is a big next step. But I don't know which of those two do you want to talk about first?
- [04:30]
Zofia Zvyglinska
Yeah, I think let's talk about Amazon and its problems because I think that this is a big part of it and also a bit of a redemption arc for Amazon since the whole project Nessie in 2015, which obviously looked at price gouging across the whole site. And that was a bit of a scandal that I think burned a lot of retailers and brands from working with Amazon. Amazon's been trying to claw back some more fashion brands and retailers to build up, I guess its legitimacy in that space as well.
- [05:04]
Danny Parisi
Yeah, Nike coming back to Amazon is a big win for them, as is on the Amazon luxury stores. This big partnership with Saks, which brought a lot of the kind of coveted luxury brands that did not sell on luxury stores themselves like Dolce and Gabbana into that catalog. So I think Amazon has done a pretty good job of bringing in some pretty prestigious brands recently. On the other side, I want to talk about Nike's wholesale strategy here. So 2019 and 2020, I mentioned they did this full direct to consumer focus shift. They pulled out of a lot of their. They stopped selling on Amazon, but they also pulled it back on dsw, Foot Locker, Dick's Sporting Goods, all of these wholesale retailers. That was a huge part of their business was Nike. I think Foot Locker in particular, I remember being pretty unhappy about this because it makes up such a big part of their, or made up such a big part of their. Anyway, in the years since, I think Nike has been slowly kind of undoing that. They are back on Amazon now, but they're also just in the last year or two back on dsw, back in Macy's, recently back in Urban Outfitters, all these places that they pulled out of. And I think my take is that one, it's just Nike kind of seeing that the direct model didn't work out perfectly for them. I also wonder if wholesale is a little bit of a safer harbor at a time of rough economic waters, to stretch this metaphor. You know, when things are easier and more prosperous, maybe it's easier to go it alone and do direct consumer and be your own marketing and merchandising machine. But then when things are tougher and scarcer, it's like maybe a little safer to build these relationships with wholesalers because they can provide sort of a safety net. I don't know. That's just my take. I feel like I felt in the air a little bit of a shift back toward wholesale in the last, particularly the last six months.
- [06:56]
Zofia Zvyglinska
Yeah, definitely. But I think it still depends on kind of who your wholesale partner is. You know, as you mentioned, obviously, Nike had this big kind of long standing relationship with Foot Locker and Footlocker actually just recently posted their earnings for the first quarter and revenue for their three month period has fallen 4.6% year over year. So I'm wondering if there's a little bit of softness in certain types of wholesalers and maybe Amazon is a bit more of a surer bet because people are shopping online because of the kind of price guarantee that Amazon offers and also the convenience. I do also think that, you know, Nike is just trying to almost cover all of its bases and Amazon is definitely the widest base in terms of what it can cover. So perhaps that's also a way of just trying to get their product in front of even more people. But I'm not sure. Maybe it's just a brand thing. Maybe people are just not buying Nike as much anymore.
- [07:52]
Danny Parisi
I do think that Nike has struggled with a little bit of declining sales and their new CEO, Elliot Hill, has done a lot of rethinking and revamping the brand. So, yeah, we'll talk about Nike more in future episodes, I'm sure. But speaking of Nike, we should jump over to a major competitor of them, which is Adidas. This week there is a lawsuit happening between Steve Madden and Adidas over copyright infringement. It's actually Steve Madden suing Adidas, which is kind of the opposite of how these lawsuits usually go. But it's in retaliation to what Steve Madden himself has said is years and years and years of like, basically harassment from Adidas, which has constantly. They've sued Steve Madden multiple times, They've made complaints and they've tried to get products, Steve Madden products pulled off the shelves, all because they believe it causes confusion with consumers, because basically there are stripes. So Steve Madden is seeking a, quote, non infringement and no unfair competition declaratory judgment from a judge that would prevent Adidas from filing further suits. The most recent complaint, I don't think it reached the point of a lawsuit, but was from a new Steve Madden shoe released this year, which is called the Viento. Have you had a chance to look at this shoe, Zofia? Because if you haven't, you should pull it up right now. I want to hear your reaction seeing it.
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Zofia Zvyglinska
Huh? Okay. Yeah. I mean, I think that this.
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Danny Parisi
Can you describe it? What is it? What does it look like?
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Zofia Zvyglinska
So to me, it kind of looks like a Samba. I mean, there's no other way to say it.
- [09:26]
Danny Parisi
Absolutely does. Yeah.
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Zofia Zvyglinska
Instead of the stripes, you get a. Almost like a illustrated M across the side. But in every other element, it looks almost exactly like a samba. You know, I think maybe the sole might be slightly thicker, but apart from that, it looks almost identical. It seems like it's a kind of reoccurring problem for Steve Madden, you know, like copying shoes that have come out somewhere else and then saying it's not a copy because everyone can kind of put on the same design references, but then very clearly kind of relate to that. Is there even like a price difference between the Samba and the Steve Madden one?
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Danny Parisi
I think they're probably comparable. We could.
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Zofia Zvyglinska
They're actually about the same. I mean, on my side, actually, Samba's are cheaper than the steep Madden shoe.
- [10:15]
Danny Parisi
It's a reverse dupe. It's the same thing, but more expensive. Yeah, I think when I was reading about the lawsuit, I was very much like, I know from previous talking about this before that Adidas is pretty aggressive about these things. But then when I saw the photo, I was like, damn, that does look like a samba. I think the conflict though is over specifically stripes. And obviously Adidas has this three stripe logo that they're very protective of. And Steve Madden, I think makes a good point in his lawsuit saying you cannot own stripes. Like stripes are just such a omnipresent visual element of design, of everything. Like it's just a line, you know, it's like it's hard to own three lines parallel. Not that Adidas hasn't tried, but they also have sued Tom Brown in the past who has like a four stripe sort of motif that is used in a lot of their clothes. And I think those, all those lawsuits against Thom Brown have been pretty thoroughly defeated in various courts. I think a UK judge said, and I have this copied here, the average reasonably observant consumer paying a moderate degree of attention will generally perceive the difference between three stripes and four, which I think is fair to say.
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Zofia Zvyglinska
That is a very selfish thing to say. The average reasonably observant consumer. That is a brilliant legal observation. I'm wondering if, like Steve Madden will actually use that as precedent.
- [11:44]
Danny Parisi
I mean, I think it does bolster Steve Madden's case for sure. Again, I think this specific shoe, like, for those of you listening, I recommend Googling Steve Madden Viento. It does look exactly like a samba, and not just because it has, you know, two stripes on the side. The heel, like colored tab on the heel is exactly the same. Like the silhouette is exactly the same. So that one does look like a Samba. But I do think he has a point about stripes not being this, like Adidas only thing. Nobody can do stripes on shoes. It's like a stripe is just a line anybody can do. But I do wonder, whenever there's big lawsuits like this, there's one side which is who has the right of it legally, and then there's the other side, which is who will actually win in court. And at least in the U.S. which is, I believe, where this lawsuit is filed, it's often whoever has more money just wins out of pure attrition because court cases are expensive and oftentimes a larger party will seek out a court battle with a smaller party, even if they know they're wrong, because they know they can just like sort of outlast them. A great example which is timely this week. A little while ago I remember speaking about Hailey Bieber's beauty brand. Rhode was in a legal battle with a much smaller but also much older fashion brand called Rhode, spelled exactly the same way. And the founders of Rhode, the fashion brand, had told me that a couple years before that Hailey Bieber had come to them and asked to buy the name and they said no. And then she just kind of went ahead and made a new brand with the same name anyway. And as of now, as of recording this, Rhode, the fashion brand, is shut down. And Road, the beauty brand, was just sold for like a billion dollars this week. So I think my non expert opinion, the fashion brand Road completely was in the right, but just because they were much smaller and didn't have the money, now they're gone. Which, you know, that's how it works a lot of times.
- [13:39]
Zofia Zvyglinska
Yeah. And I think that's what's so interesting because like with Steve Madden, like big brand, definitely. But I wouldn't say it compares to Adidas. And yet they're still very much willing to kind of take them down as much as possible on the stripe thing. So I wonder how it will play out and whether it will go a similar way to the Tom Browne lawsuit as well.
- [13:59]
Danny Parisi
And Adidas has asked courts before to rule that other brands need to stop selling shoes entirely or take product off the shelves entirely if it contains these confusing elements. But I do think they've been, like I said, defeated pretty thoroughly several times in similar lawsuits. So I'm sure that puts a damper on that. Let's use our last couple minutes to talk about, like I said, some breaking news this morning. But Maria Grazia Chiuri, who was the artistic director of Dior's women's line for many years, just announced Thursday morning before our recording that she's leaving. And this is shortly after Jonathan Anderson from Loewe took over at Dior on the men's side. I remember seeing at the time that there was some rumors. Would Jonathan Anderson take over both sides? That as as of this recording Thursday morning, that hasn't been announced. They haven't said if somebody else is taking Maria's spot or if Jonathan Anderson is taking over both sides, but that's it. I don't have a ton to say about this other than she is like extremely pedigreed. She worked at Fendi, she worked at Valentino, she worked with Pierpaolo Piccioli who is now at Balenciaga. And aside from being, I think, A very talented designer. Also one of the few women to lead a major luxury brand artistically. And I believe the only woman to ever lead Dior specifically.
- [15:19]
Zofia Zvyglinska
Yeah, exactly. Dior has not had a woman leading the collection since its founding in 1947. So it's been quite a while for Dior to have a female creative director. And I think it leaves Louise Trotter, who's at Bottega, and Sarah Burton at Givenchy.
- [15:37]
Danny Parisi
Yeah, it's surprisingly uncommon. Maybe not surprisingly, but it's very uncommon for a business that is so an industry that's so reliant on women as consumers. And in many other parts of the industry, I mean, when we have our glossy events. I was talking with one of our speakers about our upcoming summit, who's a Man, and I was like, a lot of times I'm like, it's like 95% women at our glossy events. Women make up such a huge chunk of the industry, except for at the top levels a lot of times, which is true, I think, for many industries and unsurprising for women for a lot of reasons. That sounds weird. That made it sound like I was like, I mean, unsurprising, given how sexist a lot of industries are. The only other thing I want to say about Maria is, and we've said on this podcast before, that sometimes the fashion rumor mill can be a little bit like, pointless and self serving. It's funny, when I was doing some Googling before this, I found a bunch of articles from late last year that was like, pierpaolo Piccioli is definitely going to Fendi. And it's like, that did not happen. So people were reporting that and that didn't happen. So I don't want to spend too much time on sort of speculation. But in terms of the big fashion houses that have an opening at the moment, I believe Fendi does not have a creative director. Unless I'm right, I think there's an opening there. Maria Grazia Chiiri has worked at Fendi before. She's free, she's available. So I don't know if we want to make some sort of suggestion of where she might end up. I feel like that might be a good fit, but who knows?
- [17:13]
Zofia Zvyglinska
Yeah, I mean, all of this is obviously timed to her last show, which was in Rome yesterday. And I think there was some key kind of eye drapes around the eyes of the models, which was kind of alluding to Kim Jones and his exit from Dior as well. So almost like a final bow. I think at the moment, Maria's renovating a theater in Rome. So I wonder if maybe she's waiting for her next creation creative director gig until after that, or else she might look the way of some of the other creative directors like Dreas Van Noughten, who have taken a full retirement back to their garden, which I think is also a great way to go. And just as a quick note, under her leadership, Dior's couture sales rose from 2.2 billion euros in 2017 to a peak of 9.5 billion in 2023. So she has also had a little bit of an impact on the sales as well as that we should all be femin T shirts, so hopefully there'll be more to come from a better or at least a newer creative designer in the next couple of months.
- [18:20]
Danny Parisi
Absolutely. Cool. I think that's all the time we have for our news review segment, but thank you for discussing it with me, Sophia. Like I said at the top of the episode, we're going to take a short break and then you and I recorded a conversation earlier this week testing out some new AI search tools and talking a little bit about the impact that these tools may or may not have on the way people search for products. But I think it's a good conversation. Stick around after the break to hear that.
- [18:53]
Glossy Podcast Host
We're going to take a quick break to hear from our sponsor, hey Glossy Podcast listeners. Listrack consistently delivers results for their beauty and fashion clients, providing critical data, insights, opportunities and innovation to help them succeed over the holiday season. List Track launched the first rich communication services marketing campaign in the United States for its partner and client, the American Heritage handbag and fine leather goods brand Dooney and Bourke. The campaign proved the power of this revolutionizing mobile messaging format, more than doubling the revenue per cent compared to SMS campaigns. Bridge Communication Services RCS for short, has already made a splash globally and now it's available in the us. This tracks Industry experts expect RCS to be the beauty and fashion marketers power tool in 2025, driving ROA by delivering rich interactive experiences that bring brands to life. Think enhanced media and photography, product carousels, multiple choice questions, polls. All interactions that go beyond the traditional copy with an SMS message. Now is the time to start creating your RCS strategy and listrack is here to help and guide you in reaching your customers via interactive messaging. That's listtrack.com l I s t r a k.com.
- [20:21]
Danny Parisi
Foreign I'm Christina Ko, senior editor at Custom Digiday Media's and Glossy's in House agency. In this podcast, Inner Social Story, sponsored by Listrack, we speak with Jamie Eldon, Listrack's chief revenue officer about how beauty brands are standing out, leveraging personalization and what creative formats are on the horizon.
- [20:49]
Jamie Elden
I think we've all seen these brands that emerge on Instagram reels and they're on TikTok. They just appear and then suddenly they're everywhere and everybody's either wearing it, using it or talking about it. You know, like the direct to consumer brands that may have started in somebody's bedroom, basement, kitchen and within a year everybody's bought it. And that is a lot of these smaller brands are able to get that kind of success quickly by leveraging social media channels. Influencers, specifically micro influencers, you know, that they can lean into to use the product, talk about the product. They really know how to connect with a consumer and specifically a younger consumer today. And that's where a lot of the larger, more, you know, global brands and national brands, I think struggle is finding that unique voice to connect there.
- [21:45]
Danny Parisi
While some beauty brands are finding success channeling their passion into social media posts, another way to stand out is through effective personalization.
- [21:55]
Jamie Elden
What we're doing is we're becoming a shopping partner with that customer. We're making recommendations based upon what their likes are and their behaviors. And that's something that we've been able to do at scale, cross channel across whatever device somebody's preferred method is. We then may pull in two to three blog articles or written content that Peter Thomas Roth done about, you know, best practices for skin care and healthcare and we might put that in the email as well because we might find that valuable to support the product. So again, you know, what we're able to do is really build this personalized recommendation journey for a customer not only by putting the right product in front of them that they're interested in, but hey, here's some interesting articles and content around this area that you're looking at and we're finding that that has become extremely valuable. It's kind of taking everything that they're interested in and putting it in one destination. And when they open it up, they feel that, wow, this is exactly what I've been looking at and what I'm interested in.
- [22:58]
Danny Parisi
As delivering unique personalized experiences becomes what consumers expect, beauty brands now have access to new technology to develop highly impactful mobile experiences that showcase their exceptional creatives.
- [23:11]
Jamie Elden
In beauty and fashion. Brands really focus their creative prowess around print, digital, outdoor. They spend a lot of money on those creatives to make them look beautiful and to really appeal to consumers. That creative discipline around those is now being transformed into email creative, SMS creative, MMS creative. Listrack is the first company in the United States to send an RCS message, which is rich, creative, and that is going to be a game changer for the beauty industry and the fashion industry in 2025. Moving forward, RCS messaging through mobile phones allows a brand to pull in their TikTok shop content, their reels, their influencer content all into a video environment on somebody's cell phone. So what that means is it allows to create this unique, rich creative experience with functionalities of they can shop, they can browse through catalogs, they can request something through this. It's a whole new way of a brand to communicate with a consumer through a cell phone. And it's going to be incredibly fascinating to see how that evolves over the next one to three years.
- [24:39]
Danny Parisi
You've been listening to Jamie Eldon, Chief Revenue Officer at Listrack, our sponsor, on this episode. And now back to the Glossy Podcast.
- [24:52]
Zofia Zvyglinska
Hi. So we're here on the Glossy Podcast talking all things AI and search today, which I think is a fun and also very divisive topic. So very much looking forward to getting into this with you. Danny, I know that you've got some thoughts that you'll be sharing later in the episode.
- [25:09]
Danny Parisi
I think you and I have already had many good conversations about AI and its place in the fashion industry and the world on this podcast before, so I'm happy we can dive into it, especially with the Google News from just a couple days ago.
- [25:24]
Zofia Zvyglinska
Yeah. So on May 20, Google held its IO developer conference where they announced a bunch of new AI features, including Flow, which is a new filmmaking tool, and AI Mode, which is a chat like version of Search, which I covered in an article last week. But the uptake caught our attention on the fashion front because of this new try on mode that they're testing through Search. On Google, you can upload a full body photo of yourself and then when you search for clothing, Google basically suggests what those clothing items look like on you. And this is just the latest addition to AI search products and we thought it'd be a good time to delve into what how is AI search and how it's changing fashion and shopping. And now obviously I don't have it in the UK yet, this is a US product at the moment. But Danny, I know that you are playing around with it a little bit. Tell me a little bit more about how it went.
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Danny Parisi
Yeah, so I tested out this feature last week, I think Friday, which was shortly after they announced it. So I toyed around with it a little bit. I actually have some product listings pulled up here which we can do a live demonstration and see how it goes. But I will say it worked the way they said it would work. I'll say more about this after I show you. But I think my main thing is just how useful is it even if it functions the way they say that it functions. So do you want me to share my screen right now and we can do an example?
- [26:48]
Zofia Zvyglinska
Yeah, let's have a look into it.
- [26:50]
Danny Parisi
Basically, I have uploaded a kind of awkward photo of myself standing in my sister in law's basement. On Google Search, just a regular shopping page, you search for a product, you can click on basically any of these product listings that come up. There's a little try it on button that appears at the bottom of the product image. And then Google uses the image of yourself that you uploaded. Here's me. And kind of puts the item on you so you can see how it will look. It also kind of alters the rest of your outfit. I don't know if you can see in the original photo I'm wearing sweatpants and just socks, but this has like added slacks and like it looks like black leather kind of dress shoes. Yeah, but here's the jacket which like as you can see, yeah, it kind of looks like the jacket. It actually styled it a little differently than the photo. The photo has it open whereas the Google version kind of buttoned it up. Like I said, I own this jacket. It's in the other room. That is pretty much how it looks. So it does what it says it does. In that sense it functions. I think my thing and this will probably come up more as we're going. I'm a little bit of an AI skeptic. I think that a lot of money has been poured into this technology and a lot of promises have been made that I think are absolutely overblown and will kind of crash and burn. And so my main reaction with this is like, okay, now I see. I can see what myself, I can see what I look like wearing that shirt. I don't know if that's that revolutionary. Like I don't know if that's going to change the face of like for one, I have my imagination. You know, I can picture myself wearing this shirt. The other thing is I don't think that Google knows anything about the fit of this shirt. So I don't know if the fit that it's showing me is going to correspond with reality at all. I think it just kind of looks like a generic T shirt, but maybe this shirt fits, maybe it runs large. I don't think it tells me any information about that, and I don't think it knows any information about that. So that's kind of. My main reaction is just like, how much does this add to the value of using Google to search for clothes that you don't already get from just kind of eyeballing or clicking through and reading the measurements? Or, you know, sometimes on a product listing, they'll say, like, this model who's wearing it is like Sichuan or whatever. There's already lots of helpful tools out there. I just don't know if this is like really earth shaking. That's my thought. What's your take? Kind of watching it happen.
- [29:22]
Zofia Zvyglinska
I think it's interesting previously with the coat that you had the blue jade crew kind of chalko. I think that that was interesting because it also restyled it for you. The way that it's shot in the campaign imagery, the product imagery is different to the way it shows up on AI. And I think the one thing that people would want to see is that they would want to see it styled almost the same way. So it's almost like an identical fit of the outfit on you. Speaking of restyling, I have another experiment.
- [29:52]
Danny Parisi
This one, I would say this is probably not how I would wear this over a orange polo shirt. And you can see here the text just completely crapped out. And yeah, it's like, I don't think I would wear a Knicks jersey tucked into slacks like that.
- [30:10]
Zofia Zvyglinska
Yeah, so typically I'd say a Knicks jersey, you'd wear it over your trousers. In this picture, Danny is shown with a polo shirt. The Knicks jersey is on top, but there's also belted trousers and the jersey is tucked in.
- [30:24]
Danny Parisi
The jersey tucked in. I look like this is like what Spike Lee wears to a Knicks game. I'm not going to be dressed like this. I think this kind of gets to my other big criticism with generative AI, especially around search is. I think there's been a lot of rightful criticism about Google's AI overviews, which, if you use Google in the last year, you've definitely encountered. I find it very frustrating because I have seen stuff come up that I know is incorrect. I have searched for Glossy, like our publication Glossy Co. You know, I was like searching for some article I had written a while ago and I searched it on Google and the AI overview came up and Was like glossy acquired this other company in like 2022 or whatever. No, we did not. We did not acquire. We've never acquired any companies. And I screenshot it and sent it to our people at the company and was like, Google's presenting incorrect stuff about us, and we're not the only entity that has had just completely incorrect stuff. Coming up on the AI Overview. So Google's whole disclaimer is like, note some of the results might be wrong. And for me, I'm like, well, that kills the entire purpose because now I don't know if I can trust it, which means I'll have to verify it, which means I could have just done that in the first place. So anyway, I'm sorry, I'm like going off, but this image of me with this horrible orange polo, this is like totally wrong. And this is actually negatively helpful. Like, this does not. This does the opposite of help me decide if I want to buy this.
- [31:58]
Zofia Zvyglinska
And try to regenerate it, see if it works again. Because obviously that's the thing.
- [32:02]
Danny Parisi
Good thinking. I forgot there is a regenerate.
- [32:05]
Zofia Zvyglinska
Yeah. So I think that with these visual AI tools, obviously, a lot of the times they'll struggle with text and numbers and jerseys obviously both have text and numbers on them. And I'm assuming it's trying to suggest a look for you without really knowing or recognizing what that item is. So again, it kind of pulls to the metadata. Oh, wow. Now it's put you on a polo neck with the jersey on top.
- [32:29]
Danny Parisi
This is better. Honestly, it's like a blue turtleneck sweater with a jersey with nonsense letters over it. It's better. It's closer to like something you might actually wear. But yeah, I know. And you would know this better than me, Zofia, but I know a lot of AI stuff does often require you to reprompt and refine several times before you kind of get a good output. And I certainly have noticed that toying around with Google's AI try on is a lot of times if the first result is not great, I regenerate and it's like a little better. Like in this case, this look is. It does say 32C for the number of the jersey.
- [33:09]
Zofia Zvyglinska
That sounds like a bra size to me. I'm wondering where it's getting that kind of text from. But it is a tool, I think that was initially launched. It was launched back on May 20. It was supposed to be more of a kind of woman's first fashion kind of tool. I think the brands that they launched with were like Everlane, Anthropologie, H and M. And some of those have men's options, but maybe also their men's range is a little bit limited.
- [33:36]
Danny Parisi
That's a good point. One other thing to note is that the jersey itself, aside from the text, I think it's more understandable for the text to be kind of wrong. The jersey itself is kind of in the AI image is not the same. The actual product you can see has orange kind of piping around the neck and the sleeves, which is not visible on the AI version, there's a Nike logo that's not there. There's a couple of things beyond just the text being jumbled, where it's like, it actually doesn't look like the product. Have you ever created. I know some people who do this where they will take pictures of clothes in their closet and assemble them of every piece of item, every piece of clothing they own and make their own kind of personal library of all their clothes and then assemble them either literally, like print them out and, like, put them together, or just like in a, you know, in your phone, like, flip through and kind of like visualize that way. Have you ever done that? I feel like that's a pretty common thing people do.
- [34:36]
Zofia Zvyglinska
Yeah, I think that that one's really common, especially with, like, Apple's tool where you can print, get, like a cutout of a person through a photo, and that basically allows you to pull the whole look and what you're wearing. And then I've seen people line up these silhouettes in their Notes app and show, you know, which items am I wearing the most today? You know, which ones are some of the most popular ones. It seems like this is very different to that because you don't know exactly how it fits on you. And I think that's the biggest concern with this tool, is that you're looking for a very personalized fit.
- [35:09]
Danny Parisi
Yes.
- [35:10]
Zofia Zvyglinska
So obviously with this tool, this is something that allows you to try on items in a variety of different sizes. It uses generative AI, which pulls from, you know, a vast kind of source of imagery across the Internet that Google has access to. It's supposed to, from a benefits perspective, reduce returns, build confidence, improve fit visualization. But as we've seen, it hasn't been the most accurate with that. And I think that there's still some tests to be done around that. And I think that the more interesting thing is just the rise of conversational AI and kind of how it's appealing, I guess, to people who have been tired of search engines which are not working quite as well as they would have hoped. I think Google in general has had issues in the past with sponsored posts coming way too high up on the page. It means that a lot of kind of organic results have been hidden. Have you had those frustrations as well when you're looking online and you just can't find anything you like?
- [36:10]
Danny Parisi
I definitely have. And I think in some ways a lot of the frustrations with AI search are also just kind of frustrations with search in general. Like. Like having to search multiple times and things coming up maybe not being accurate. It's like those problems did exist before AI search, so it's not like they're completely unique. I do think there's been sort of an overall dilution of Google, specifically Google's search quality. They put out a lot of data around how often people are searching and how many times they search for the same thing. And I sometimes think that those data points are maybe a negative thing rather than a positive. It's like people are searching for the same thing multiple times. I'm like, that maybe means they're not getting a good result. And Google also, I think, has a whole strategy of wanting to keep you on Google for longer and wanting to get you to. If you think about it, every time you redo the same search, you're getting served ads again. So if they can get you to search for something three times, that's three times the amount of ads compared to just doing it one time. So I think the whole process has definitely been getting more kind of tedious and annoying for the user. Even before AI was involved. And also from, we should say, as writers and reporters, it's been not great for journalism to have Google kind of pluck the interesting information out of your article that you spent time working on and show it right there in the Google homepage so people can get the value of the writing that you did with no click through and no benefit to the person who actually came up with that information. So I may have a little bit of bitterness over that. But yeah, just generally it does feel like the search kind of experience in general across the Internet has kind of been worsening over time. I mean, I think we're probably all familiar with the phenomenon of adding Reddit to the end of every Google search to get actual good information, because it's coming from Reddit, which is like a site where real people actually answer questions. And I think that's a sign of kind of the poor quality of some of Google's search results over the years.
- [38:24]
Zofia Zvyglinska
Yeah, Exactly. And I think that that's the thing is with these new search tools there's also been a kind of reuptake of what does it mean to search and what does that mean for an accurate result. Interestingly, Reddit is actually one of the things that is most commonly pulled on ChatGPT in terms of like what kind of information you'll be getting. And you know, chatgpt that was, you know, prevail mostly kind of launched last year. I think most people have ended up using it this year it's become one of the most popular shopping tools. I think 49% of consumers have used AI tools for shopping research according to data from Envision, which is all US based. And ChatGPT is definitely the most popular, I think 35% of most popular, followed by Google, Gemini and Microsoft Copilot. And most people end up using it for price comparisons, review summarizations. It's too much basically reading long reviews and product recommendations. I think 20% of people use it for recommendations as well. And at the moment the start of the shopping journey is mostly still limited to Google, which I think stands at 44%. Amazon stands at 25. Only 3% of consumers start with AI, but obviously that number will probably grow, especially as you mentioned with the ad conversation. Like at the moment ChatGPT does not have ads, but it can I think link out to affiliates. So I think they've seen 1 billion shopping related searches a week, which feels like quite a lot.
- [39:56]
Danny Parisi
That's a huge number. And I think you're right that that number, despite all my reservations, I'm sure that number will probably increase just because AI is kind of like being presented everywhere and being pitched to customers as like this is the definitive way to shop for things. The ad element in ChatGPT I think is interesting because I often feel with like a lot of like new platforms, they come out and there's not ads baked into it and because that's when they're trying to get a user base and they make it very user friendly and everything and then they put in the ads and like the experience kind of suffers because that's like literally why Google is the way that it is. So I do wonder how once affiliate links and things like that start to get integrated more deeply into ChatGPT, how that will affect the user experience because then I can imagine a scenario where you search for something and it's like, sponsored by American Eagle Outfitters. I think American Eagle is the right option for your query or whatever. And then it's like Is it actually the right option or is that just what they were paid to say, which is how you feel about Google search results? When the first thing that comes up is an ad, it's like, does that actually answer my question or is that just what somebody paid to get put there? I don't know. I'm not sure how that's going to work once they turn that on.
- [41:11]
Zofia Zvyglinska
Yeah. And I think the general kind of sentiment around ads is that if they're not helpful right now, they're almost detrimental to brand confidence. And I think with AI search, it's not just something that's applicable through ChatGPT. There's a whole, I guess, change coming in terms of how people are shopping. You know, they're already doing a lot of price comparisons, mostly manually. You know, they're thinking about their purchases across brand sites, across resale sites, either through swapping. I think the general kind of structure of shopping online has changed, and I think that brands are not the only ones which are seeing traffic right now. There was a company founded by two girls from Harvard Via, and that's kind of a shopping tool that compares new and resale prices and again uses conversational AI to I guess, suggest some of the better options and also look at those price dynamics. So if you've ever thought about the stock market, but for fashion, this is something that, that could be a kind of useful tool for the future. It also has this kind of should I buy this tool? Basically looking at whether this piece has resale value. I know that for some of the investment categories that we've talked about in fashion, that would be quite useful, like watches, for example.
- [42:27]
Danny Parisi
Absolutely. And before I sound like too much of a hater, I do think some of the things I've heard like that can sound like fia. I think Daydream is the other startup that you mentioned to me before the recording. Some of those do feel like they could really add to the process. I think price comparison in a very fast, easy way feels like a missing piece from a lot of search. And also we should spend a minute or two talking about. I feel like we've talked a lot about the consumer experience and consumer behavior, which I think is good to discuss. We should talk about it kind of from the brand side. Like, how do you imagine brands should work with this technology or change their practices, knowing that. That people are going to be generating images of themselves wearing the clothes and it maybe looks like garbage? Or even just all the other things, like they're asking ChatGPT what to wear and Chatgpt scrapes a bunch of stuff like Reddit. It's like, can brands do anything to kind of set themselves up for success in that kind of ecosystem?
- [43:34]
Zofia Zvyglinska
Yeah. So I mean, I think there's multiple ways that brands can look at this as almost like an opportunity to rethink the search strategy, but also get the product descriptions, how they're looking at describing product, and also how their product appears online in general. So across other channels like Reddit, for example, AI, unlike Google, doesn't really care about keyword stuffing, so it thinks about structured, readable product content. So if your descriptions don't make sense or if they don't describe the product accurately, then also the AI won't search them well and it might end up kind of confusing people who are looking at it through AI search engines. There's a definite kind of focus on noun and benefit phrasing. So for example, if you want a linen MIDI dress for a summer wedding, you have to put that instead of just putting a linen MIDI dress and make sure that all the other kind of metadata so things like size, price and the visual are all accurate, which I know can be a little bit tough. There's still some imagery issues across a lot of shopping pages and obviously having more images, more detailed imagery can be helpful as well. And then, yeah, just moving on to first party content. So things like product pages, reviews and UGC is also essential. And you know, user generated content is something that we've talked about a lot, whether that's, you know, on the Glossy fashion podcast or the beauty one. The importance of people actually just sharing content of what they're wearing is going to be a bigger factor going forward and, and AI tools will basically scrape that information and also use it to generate results through their search.
- [45:15]
Danny Parisi
Yeah, I was thinking about another test I did kind of before this recording was just going on ChatGPT and saying, I'm going to Rome for a week in September, what should I wear? Or something? And at first it kind of gave me a very just generic. It was like, you should bring a casual shirt and you should also bring a dressier shirt. I was like, wow, thank you, that's really helpful. But I kind of like poked at it a little more to get some more specifics and it did eventually kind of give me a full packing list and stuff like that. But one of the things I was thinking about is when you start to get into aesthetics and taste, it's like, whose taste is shaping this? Is it scraping an aggregate of the entire Internet and deciding that this type of linen suit could be cool for a summer wedding. But I'm like, as a consumer, I think I would rather hear that even if it's the exact same information from an influencer I follow because I followed them because I like their style or whatever and they could say the exact same thing. And for me, I feel like it would carry a lot more weight because it's coming from this specific person rather than coming from this amalgamated sludge of the entire Internet. I don't know if that makes sense.
- [46:24]
Zofia Zvyglinska
Yeah, I agree with that. No, I mean, I think that you see that nowadays. I don't know about you, but in London you go out and you see a lot of teens wearing the exact same thing. Whether it's like baggy trousers and tight vests. It seems like the general consensus is that style can also be almost manufactured. And I'm wondering obviously for people who are a little bit more style sensitive, whether something like that will almost detract from that experience like it is with you. Like you said that an influencer who actually has personal style or who has styles similar to you will probably be more of an authority for you than something like an AI search engine. So we might see AI search engines being more used for shopping for practical items. Let's say that you want the most comfortable sandal, for example. That is something that you might want to look for and then make the style choices yourself. But I don't think it will be informing fashion choices, at least not soon.
- [47:21]
Danny Parisi
Yeah, I think it's my last thought and then I promise I'll shut up. But I feel like my feeling with a lot of AI stuff is it's good at coming up with kind of like very basic, like low level things. And the more knowledgeable you are about a certain topic or the more, the deeper you want to go with it, the less useful the AI becomes. Like, as someone who knows a lot about fashion and has strong preferences and tastes around fashion, I find an AI tool telling me to bring a dressier shirt and a casual shirt not useful at all, because I already know that. Whereas someone who has no like interest in or real knowledge of fashion might find that very useful. I think that's true for a lot of things. If you want like a very basic explanation of something that you know nothing about, maybe it's helpful. But if you already know a good amount about this topic or you're already going, you're already deep into a topic, it's like, becomes less useful over time. That's kind of my, my feeling. So for Fashion. And for brands, maybe a brand that's caters to a real fashionista customer who really, really knows their stuff may be less useful. I don't know. Just the thought.
- [48:28]
Zofia Zvyglinska
Yeah, definitely. I think that that's the thing. These kind of changes will probably affect more brands who are in that kind of mass consumer category. Anyone from, I don't know, Crocs or Hoka like those brands, I think will care more about those AI search engines than maybe something like Gucci or Louis Vuitton. Even those in the luxury kind of area would probably care less about these results. And I think we're going to be seeing more and more of this. Amazon, Rufus and Google's AI mode are also moving to doing more guided shopping agents similar to ChatGPT. And obviously you've got Daydream and Fear and other startups which are also working in the space and looking to disrupt it. So I think there's a lot more kind of coming in this area and we'll definitely be keeping an eye on it. But for brands, I think the main kind of takeaways on optimize the product content, not just for SEO, but AI readability and look at how your product appears. And obviously that's going to be something that you're going to be handling across a lot of different SKUs. So you've got to keep on top of that and invest in structured data, clean visuals and make sure that the monetization strategy is effective for those channels. As, you know, new options come about. But I think that that's, that's everything that we have time for. Thank you so much Danny, for coming on and being our AI critic.
- [49:48]
Danny Parisi
Well, thank you for guiding us through the conversation. I'm going to go back to probably never using this tool again.
- [49:58]
Zofia Zvyglinska
And that's all the time that we have this week. Don't forget to give us a rating and a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you're listening to this, it really helps us out a lot. Thanks for listening.
- [50:09]
Danny Parisi
I don't.