• by Sarah Mahoney , Staff Writer @mahoney_sarah, May 13, 2024

While not everyone fancies themselves a textile designer, Adore Me says many people do, and with AM by You, it’s letting them shine. With just a few words and $55, people can ask the tool to design a one-of-a-kind fabric for a bralette-and-panty set. The lingerie company, now owned by Victoria’s Secret, says the generative AI platform marks a first in the retail industry. Ranjan Roy, senior vice president of strategy, tells D2C Insider what the company is learning from the new initiative.

D2C Insider: AM by You, newly launched and still in beta, is novel. While many brands, notably Nike, have played around with this idea for decades, none I can think of use generative AI.

Ranjan Roy: I know. This translates something that's just an idea in your head into something created and shipped to your doorstep. There's almost no other product or service like this. We are seeing incredibly personal things -- lots of nice messages of love, particular hobbies, breeds of pets. The idea is, "I want to convey this message either myself or as a gift for a friend or significant other." People want to translate that message into a unique fashion print. And it’s not just a literal interpretation, like putting a photograph on a T-shirt. It’s a true fashion item.

D2C Insider: What made you decide people would want to try this now? Have companies like Etsy opened consumers up to broader possibilities of personalization?

Roy: It’s the technology that's now available. In the past, you would need to know exactly what you want to do. I’m not visually creative, and I’ve tried to make personalized T-shirts and even played with Nike ID. There was a barrier. You needed to be creative. Now, you type in a few words and get beautiful designs that are good. It allows people who aren’t that visually creative to make beautiful things.

D2C Insider: In the same way that generative AI can write code for people who can’t code?

Roy: Exactly. That’s an interesting thing about generative AI. Its impact on people already great at something isn’t that big -- they don’t find much use for it. It's the people who aren’t very good at something that appreciate it most.

D2C Insider: You spoke recently at a MediaPost event and showed hilarious examples of how generative AI can get it wrong. Any chance of that with AM by You?

Roy: No. We have trained this model in very specific ways. It creates something that's a repeating print. So, for example, you put in “border collie” and colors. The complexity in image generation happens when you're trying to have a very specific granular image -- that’s not what we’re doing with this. We've trained this to be something a little more artistic and freeform.

D2C Insider: What kind of consumer is interested in this? Is it someone already playing with AI?

Roy: No! We were so curious that we reached out to customers who had placed orders and asked if they’d previously used any generative AI. A small percentage had used ChatGPT or another text generation tool. But almost no one knew how to use image generation tools. It’s validating that this isn't just for tech people but more for creative or curious people. They want to experiment, to express themselves. We recognize this is a niche. Still, it is appealing to a large diversity of customers in terms of age, geography and how much they’ve previously spent with us.

D2C Insider: How long will you keep it going? Is there an end date?

Roy: No. We anticipate continuing to scale this as more customers try. The pilot phase has been so promising in terms of customer response. And there are a million different ideas of where this could go and other ways to leverage this technology. Right now, we’re trying to prioritize the most promising areas regarding revenue growth and customer engagement.

D2C Insider: Can you say more about the benefit of engagement?

Roy: This is a revenue stream for us and a customer engagement tool. We've had over 77,000 prompts total, and the average user tries 5.4 prompts, spending more than four minutes with the tool. As people keep iterating, they don't even necessarily try different things. They add additional words. They move around the order of the words – they quickly learn how to use this technology.

Then, for us, they spend more time on the site, having fun and engaging creatively with the brand in a completely different way. As advertising has gotten more competitive, creating that kind of loyalty and brand love is something everyone's trying to do. For us, it’s this kind of gamification tool. As a direct-to-consumer business, creating that kind of onsite experience is something we've never done before.

D2C Insider: How are you letting people know about this?

Roy: We have limited this to marketing to existing customers via our channels. We've done segmented email campaigns to push the messaging.

D2C Insider: Do you worry these custom designs will take sales away from your regular products?

Roy: It's certainly not a concern at this stage, but it does come up when we talk about the theoretical future of fashion. Also, bringing this level of customization to more complex products is impossible right now. As you add wires and lace, this kind of printing isn’t going to threaten sales of other items any time soon.