Which brands used AI best in 2024?

After bursting onto the scene last year, artificial intelligence (AI) has firmly embedded itself into the cultural conversation in 2024.

Luxury brands in particular have been busy testing how the generative machine learning tech best suits their vision and future goals.

It’s unsurprising, given that the size of the AI market is expected to top $638.23 billion this year. But some players have deployed the tech better than others, honing in on long-term use cases over short-lived hype.

Jing Daily breaks down the brands leading the way in AI innovation below.

Brunello Cucinelli #

One of the best examples of brands embracing AI on their own terms this year came from quiet luxury king Brunello Cucinelli. In July, the brand launched a new website, separate from its e-commerce site, powered by generative AI. The platform, which has been in development since 2021, invites consumers to scroll their way through a series of different backdrops to discover immersive drawings, vignettes on Cucinelli’s life, and more. Visitors can also interact with Solomei AI, a bespoke machine-learning service that can answer questions related to the brand and designer. In the first week of the website’s existence, it amassed over 10,000 daily visitors and queries.

Balenciaga #

In February, Balenciaga sent Paris Fashion Week attendees into AI-overload for Winter 2024, when the luxury house sent models down a runway enveloped in a deluge of LED screens, each presenting its own series of AI-generated images. The stunt garnered widespread attention online and underscored Balenciaga’s commitment to capturing, creating, and challenging the zeitgeist.

Gucci #

Getting ahead of competitors, Gucci cemented itself as one of the first major fashion players to embrace Apple’s AI-enabled Vision Pro headset in April. The house launched its augmented edition of Who Is Sabato De Sarno? A Gucci Story, a short film featuring never-before-seen footage from De Sarno’s debut Gucci Ancora show in September last year, which originally aired on global streaming platform Mubi in March. As part of the activation, users could curate their own virtual spaces and interact with 3D-products inspired by the Gucci Ancora showcase. Then, in August, the brand updated its app, allowing users to dive deep into its archives in digital form. Users could explore a digital rendition of the Palazzo Settimanni in Florence, as well as flick through different portals to explore the creative process behind the maison’s iconic Bamboo 1947 bag.

Lanvin #

As part of a major image makeover, Lanvin amped up its efforts this year to re-enter the luxury conversation. Part of that plan involved deploying AI to bring the brand’s archives to life. In August, Lanvin released its sports-related campaign created using generative AI, which animated four archival sportswear sketches originally drawn by Jeanne Lanvin. Merging heritage with innovation has been a rising trend among brands this year, as they explore ways in which they can introduce new and existing customers to their roots.

JD.com #

Chinese e-commerce company JD.com, in March, introduced an expanded suite of AI-powered tools aimed at slashing merchants’ operational costs by up to 50%. Among the innovations are a virtual assistant to fast-track store setups, alongside an avatar generator for 24/7 interactive livestream shopping. JD.com founder Richard Liu even appeared as a lifelike AI-driven virtual host, complete with his Suqian accent and signature gestures, reinforcing the technology’s personal touch.

Cult Gaia #

In October, LA-based independent label Cult Gaia jumped onboard the internet hype and deployed popular app Pika AI to transform a selection of its bags into “squishy” objects, accompanied by ASMR-style audio. The concept, which was a novel way of adopting AI compared to competitors, went down well with followers, with the post garnering over 13,000 likes.

Dior #

Unveiled during this year’s VivaTech festival in Paris, Dior tapped generative AI with its new platform, Astra – a tool that extracts data to help keep brands firmly attuned to consumer preferences. This includes customer comments from multiple channels, such as Google reviews, product pages, interactions with customer service, satisfaction surveys, and live shopping sessions.

The Met #

In May, cultural institution The Metropolitan Museum of Art quietly introduced emerging tech into its experiential playbook in the form of AI. Coinciding with the Met Gala, the museum’s “Sleeping Beauties: Reawakening Fashion” installation invited visitors not only to see the clothes on display but also to smell, hear, and speak to their original wearers via AI. Onlookers could also interact with an OpenAI chatbot to learn more about New York socialite Natalie Potter’s wedding dress – the bot, which was trained using letters Potter wrote, along with newspaper articles and documents from the same time period, was modelled after Potter’s personality.

Grace Ling #

As part of her SS25 New York Fashion Week collection in September, Manhattan-based Singaporean fashion designer Grace Ling teamed up with AI startup Humane to debut the Grace Ling x Humane Handaxe Bag – an accessory designed to house Humane’s AI-powered pin. Inspired by the stone-age tools crafted by early ancestors, the Handaxe Bag appeared alongside Grace Ling’s couture and ready-to-wear collection, coined “Neanderthal.” The project marked the second time Humane has presented its new tech wearable on the runway, after teaming up with Coperni at Paris Fashion Week last year.

Ray-Ban #

In April, Ray-Ban took its commitment to tech up a notch after it released the latest iteration of its smart glasses, created in collaboration with Meta. The new eyewear tapped machine-learning technology to offer its wearers a personal styling feature designed to help wearers select and curate their outfits. Coined “Meta AI with Vision,” users can look in the mirror and ask the glasses for feedback on their outfit. Additionally, they can prompt the product to recommend garments that would complement a specific item of clothing.

WGSN #

In August, fashion forecasting platform WGSN launched a groundbreaking AI-powered data hub set to help fashion buyers with the planning and development of seasonal trends. Created using WGSN’s TrendCurve AI predictive analytics, the service scrapes and collates information from across e-commerce platforms, catwalks, and search indexes to identify trends and opportunities across the fashion sector. Forecasting up to two years ahead, the hub also offers a TikTok Trading section, helping buyers to streamline and make sense of the app’s fast-paced ecosystem and scope emerging trends.