On March 22, 2024, at The Times Center in New York, The Business of Fashion hosted the BoF Professional Summit on New Frontiers: AI, Digital Culture and Virtual Worlds.

During an insightful half-day of programming, speakers from fashion leaders such as LVMH, Calvin Klein and e.l.f. Beauty joined tech companies like Roblox and Myntra as well as emerging start-ups Refabric, Vaayu and Altana.

Speakers exchanged thoughts on the industry’s pressing themes — making sense of advancements in AI, evolving with changes in digital culture and finding fashion’s place in developing virtual spaces. Discover key highlights and takeaways from the talks below.

Opening Keynote: How Algorithms Flattened Culture

The programming opened with New Yorker staff writer Kyle Chayka, whose latest book, “Filter World,” connects the rise of algorithmic feeds to a flattening of global culture and a growing sense of anxiety and fatigue among consumers.

Chayka shared insights on why brands need to re-emphasise curation and maintain consistent brand identity to avoid falling victim to a never-ending stream of transient trends.

Key Insights:

• As we all “find a different way of being online, what persists is the idea of human curation,” Chayka said. “The more we move into these spaces, the better off we will be as consumers and creators.”
• “Meaning is what creates value in culture,” he continued. “That gets lost when you’re not focused enough.”

Session 1: The AI Imperative

Artificial intelligence is exerting its influence across fashion’s value chain. That includes allowing brands to fill knowledge gaps across their sprawling supply chains, rapidly generate new designs while preserving a designer’s sensibility and enhance product search for customers.

Key Insights:

• AI can help brands close data gaps when monitoring their supply chains, according to carbon-measurement platform Vaayu. “We can get the mapping of the supply chain and find ways for businesses to produce without absolute and perfect data,” said Namrata Sandhu, Vaayu’s co-founder and chief executive.
• If brands want to improve data using AI, they must be prepared to radically change their organisational processes: “Just making data and insight available doesn’t make you data driven,” said Sona Abaryan, partner and global fashion & luxury sector lead of AI-powered data firm Ekimetrics. “Go from using data to improve the status quo to being transformative with it.”
• AI will not replace human creativity: “If you are behind the prompt, it is your creative mind that is writing that prompt; it is your creative eye that is seeing the result of that prompt,” said designer Norma Kamali, who has been working with Maison Meta to build a tool that can carry on her design legacy. Cyril Foiret, founder and CEO of Maison Meta, added: “AI doesn’t have taste. Whoever is using the tool brings on the vision and the result comes from it.”

Session 2: Digital Culture

Speakers from legacy brand Calvin Klein and gaming platform Roblox as well as seasoned influencers discussed how they create differentiated moments and build intimacy with consumers in a noisy and flattened online culture.

Key Insights:

• With brand campaigns today, it’s important to figure out “how do you make it feel like something important as opposed to just another thing,” said Jonathan Bottomley, global chief marketing officer at Calvin Klein. “Can we turn [celebrity partners] into a character … [and] create a version of that ambassador that feels like your brand.”
• Amid growing competition and the pressure of algorithms, influencers are doubling down on being authentic with their consumers: “I’ve built a community that knows me for being vulnerable,” said Chrissy Rutherford, creator, writer and co-founder 2BG Consulting. “I only know how to be myself. There’s an influencer for every niche. If people want to see a glossy perfect life, they’re going to find that. That’s not who I’m interested in being.”
• In a conversation with Tian Pei, director of partnerships at Roblox, e.l.f. Beauty’s chief digital officer Ekta Chopra discussed how the brand connects with its consumers on a platform where users spend billions of hours each year. “Everything is about empowering others. It’s grounded in purpose. We shape culture; we connect communities,” Chopra said. “The brand is an afterthought, a sprinkle on top.”

Session 3: Virtual Worlds

In the final session, speakers mulled on how designers and established brands can use virtual reality as a design tool and leverage blockchain in the aftermath of dying hype for web3.

Key Insights:

• “We don’t say NFT anymore and don’t say metaverse anymore, [but there’s still] importance of trying to connect with their customers in new ways,” noted Nelly Mensah, vice president of digital innovation, head of crypto and metaverse at LVMH. For example, she said, “this idea of 3D as a new way of creating is another outcome of the metaverse hype. We’ll see a lot of value coming out of it.”
• Designers are embracing virtual reality in the design process as the technology improves and becomes more accessible, said Joey Khamis, footwear designer and founder of Khamis Studio. “The materials are getting better and the processes are getting more efficient.”

The BoF Professional Summit on New Frontiers: AI, Digital Culture and Virtual Worlds is made possible in part through our partners Ekimetrics, Zero10 and Invisible Collection.