From conversational AI to virtual try-ons, one thing was obvious at Drapers Future of Fashion event: AI is quickly becoming part of everyday fashion retail.
Not experimentation for experimentation’s sake, but practical, customer-focused implementation.
Across sessions featuring retail leaders from JD Sports Fashion, River Island, Urban Outfitters, IKEA, Schuh, Never Fully Dressed and Kurt Geiger, the conversations consistently returned to the same idea: technology should enhance the shopping experience, not dictate it. And perhaps most importantly for retailers, AI is only as powerful as the customer data and experiences behind it.
Fashion and Sportswear customers still love shopping. They want to browse, discover trends, feel fabrics, understand fit and experience products in-store. AI isn’t there to remove those moments; it’s there to enrich them.
That mindset feels particularly important in fashion retail, where brand identity, emotion and discovery remain central to conversion.
Neil Bradford, Director of AI activation at JD Sports, spoke about experimenting with conversational AI and virtual try-on technology, while also acknowledging that customer behaviour often evolves more slowly than the technology itself.
One of the biggest learnings so far was that customers engage with AI most heavily when they’re closest to making a purchase.
Conversational tools placed near the product display page (PDP) and add-to-bag stage significantly outperformed broader site-wide AI experiences. Customers weren’t necessarily looking for a chatbot conversation for the sake of it - they wanted reassurance, product clarity and confidence before buying.
Today’s shoppers have a growing hunger for information at the point of purchase.
And this is where connected customer experiences become increasingly valuable. Digital receipts, for example, already provide retailers with a natural post-purchase touchpoint that extends beyond the transaction itself. They create opportunities to share sizing information, styling recommendations, care instructions, loyalty benefits and personalised follow-up content after the sale, all built around real customer intent and purchase behaviour.
As AI tools become more conversational and personalised, digital receipts will become an even more important part of that connected commerce journey.
Another major theme from the event was how conversational AI is helping uncover entirely new layers of customer intent data. Retailers can now better understand:
In many ways, AI is exposing gaps in product experience design that retailers previously couldn’t see clearly. Leading to increased investment into:
This aligns closely with another recurring discussion across the event: the growing importance of product detail pages.
During a panel featuring Schuh, Urban Outfitters, River Island, IKEA and Never Fully Dressed, one point stood out immediately: PDPs are becoming the new homepage.
Customers increasingly land directly on product pages through social, search, creators, AI discovery tools and paid media. Meaning PDPs now carry far more responsibility than they once did. They’re no longer static product descriptions. They’re becoming:
Retailers discussed the importance of enriching PDPs with more useful, contextual information while still maintaining a strong human feedback loop around AI-generated enhancements.
This shift also reinforces why retailers need better first-party customer data strategies. The richer the customer understanding, the more effectively retailers can personalise experiences, recommendations and post-purchase engagement.
Digital receipts also play an increasingly strategic role here because they help bridge the gap between in-store and online customer journeys, giving retailers visibility into purchasing behaviour across channels.
That unified customer view came up repeatedly across multiple sessions and continues to be a top priority for retailers.
Fashion brands shared that retailers cannot unlock meaningful AI experiences without strong data foundations, with speakers repeatedly highlighting the challenges caused by:
Kurt Geiger’s Chief Digital Officer, Gareth Rees-John, emphasised the importance of keeping a single customer view at the centre of digital transformation.
Rather than creating a standalone AI strategy, Kurt Geiger views AI as part of a broader retail technology strategy. The focus isn’t on chasing flashy innovation; it’s on building experiences that quietly improve convenience, relevance and speed for the customer.
That subtlety matters. As Gareth put it: “Customers don’t want flashy technology. They want technology that feels invisible.”
This is especially relevant as retailers continue investing in connected commerce infrastructure. Whether it’s conversational AI, personalisation engines or digital receipts, the quality of the experience ultimately depends on the quality of the underlying data.
A key theme throughout the event was the clear rejection of the idea that AI should fully replace people in retail.
However, retailers consistently pointed to situations where automation/chatbots work brilliantly:
But there was equal recognition that many shopping experiences still benefit from human interaction.
These are harder to automate authentically.
JD Sports spoke openly about the challenge of ensuring large language models actually reflect their brand voice, rather than delivering generic AI responses. Customers shop with fashion brands because they trust their taste, curation and authority, not because they want automated robotic interactions.
That’s why many retailers are leaning toward hybrid experiences where AI supports human expertise rather than replacing it.
The retailers seeing the strongest early success appear to be those using AI to remove friction while preserving personality.
Another takeaway came from River Island, which discussed the growing importance of voice and conversational commerce.
The expectation is that future shopping journeys will increasingly move away from traditional navigation and toward natural language interactions. Customers won’t just browse menus; they’ll ask questions.
That has major implications for:
Retailers are already adapting by investing in AI search, conversational interfaces and richer product metadata.
And again, connected post-purchase experiences like digital receipts could become increasingly valuable within this ecosystem. As customer journeys become more conversational, retailers will need persistent, personalised communication channels that continue beyond checkout.
A refreshing takeaway from the entire event was the level of honesty around experimentation. Several speakers warned against overcommitting too early in such a fast-moving market.
JD Sports discussed actively trialling multiple AI systems and partners simultaneously rather than locking into a single approach. Smaller proof-of-concept pilots, rapid testing and flexibility were seen as critical.
Across the board, retailers stressed:
That mindset feels particularly important right now, as the industry moves beyond the initial AI hype and into practical implementation.
The retailers likely to win won’t necessarily be the ones deploying the most AI. They’ll be the ones deploying it most thoughtfully.
Underneath every conversation about AI sat a broader theme: connected commerce.
Retailers are trying to unify:
That’s where technologies like Yocuda’s digital receipts become increasingly strategic rather than simply operational, helping retailers such as Longchamp, Mulberry and M&S to:
The strongest message from the event wasn’t that AI will reinvent fashion retail overnight. It was that the future of retail still revolves around understanding people and how we can best implement and use AI.
AI can help retailers surface intent, personalise experiences, improve efficiency and scale creativity. But the brands making the biggest impact are the ones combining technology with strong customer understanding, trusted brand identity and high-quality data foundations.
The future isn’t AI versus humans. It’s AI helping retailers become more useful, more relevant and more connected to customers throughout the entire shopping journey.
And increasingly, that journey doesn’t end at checkout.
Book a demo with Yocuda below to discover how digital receipts can transform your business.