In the world of styling, human stylists are considered the experts. But, how does that stack up against AI?

While we love the unique perspective that each human stylist brings to the table, we also love the creativity and personalization that AI can bring to the experience. From an operational perspective, AI can scale to serve thousands of shoppers, streamlining the process of delivering recommendations

Is AI more effective than human stylists? We explore the limitations and potential:

The Limitations of Human Stylists vs AI Stylists 

There are great assets to human stylists–they have an innate, rich sense of fashion and culture, and can apply their own interpretations to each individual shopper’s sense of style and particular occasion needs.

However, there are some limitations we’d like to address for retailers who are looking to implement styling:

Limitation 1: It’s not scalable for retailers, since each stylist can only serve a few clients at a time:

There’s a longer turnover time from the shopper request to receiving styling suggestions (that can be a minimum of 7+ hours if not days). That delay leaves gaps for shoppers to not continue with the process and makes the flow of discovery staggered.

There’s never only “one” styling request–there are always (and naturally) follow-up questions, which can be difficult for retailers to keep up with the large number of questions (no matter what size retailer).

Limitation 2: When working with large retailer product catalogs, it can be difficult to match many different key elements in styling: the right style, the correct size, and the shopper’s preferred price range

Limitation 3: Human stylists need to manually check the availability of each item to make sure the shopper can purchase it, adding yet another burdensome task to the process.

Since styling is reiterative, it’s a mission-impossible task for a human stylist to handle all of their clients' requests considering the complexity of the process. What if there was a way that AI could make the process easier for retailers?

AI Stylist Capabilities Make Retailers’ Lives Easier

YesPlz ChatGPT Fashion Stylist can process an entire retailer product catalog in mere seconds, and instantly find products that perfectly match a shopper’s unique preferences.

The ChatGPT Fashion Stylist is a style master, finding matching products based on shopper’s purchase history and favorited products by analyzing the product’s key attributes such as design, style, material, and vibe. 

With the ability to process millions of data points in seconds, YesPlz ChatGPT Fashion Stylist can curate individual recommendations with laser accuracy, learning and adapting to each shopper’s fashion style.

Shoppers are often uncomfortable sharing all style preferences with a human stranger. 

For example, YesPlz research shows that all shoppers have silhouette preferences–and parts of the body they’d like to flaunt versus cover-up. But sharing that information with a human stylist can feel like a high barrier for shoppers. 

AI, on the other hand, feels more private with shoppers opening up more about preferences. This also creates an advantage for retailers who can learn more about shoppers’ true preferences.

With advancements in NLP, talking to an AI stylist can feel like talking to a trusted friend. For example, YesPlz’s ChatGPT Fashion Stylist can understand any prompt/input, in any style of writing.

And, there’s improved ease of discovery: integrated products means 1-click to purchase, so shoppers don’t need to take any extra steps

The Game-Changing Potential of AI Stylists

AI stylists are easily scalable to serve thousands of shoppers at the same time, at any time of day. With instant search results, there’s no delay in receiving product recommendations.

And, recommendations are seamlessly integrated with full product catalogs for comprehensive discovery that includes the full-depth of a retailer’s inventory.

Machine learning can continually improve and optimize recommendations by analyzing customer data and feedback in real-time.

AI stylists are more cost-effective for retailers who want a scalable solution.

According to YesPlz user interviews, a shopper noted, “I prefer the AI stylist because it’s more comfortable, and I can ask specific questions.”

But, what about the “curated white glove” experience that humans can provide?

With advancements in AI, product recommendations are anything but generic and “robotic.”

Fashion AI can be trained to deliver a curated experience that rivals personal shoppers. Of course, human stylists are also important, but for retailers that need a scalable, curated recommendation system, we think AI styling offers a cost-effective solution while maintaining quality. 

YesPlz ChatGPT Fashion Stylist is creating a curated, AI-powered product discovery experience that feels like talking to a personal stylist, combined with the speed, scale, and convenience of an AI-powered product

The Future of AI Styling for YesPlz: Style Diffusion

One key element of styling are lookbooks, which are currently done by hand. But, YesPlz is adding Complete the Look soon, so stay tuned!