IBM, FIT to Train Future Designers on AI

Building on last year’s collaboration with Tommy Hilfiger, in a project that used artificial intelligence to identify fashion trends in advance, IBM and the Fashion Institute of Technology’s Infor Design and Tech Lab are looking to expand the effort with a new AI partnership to train today’s burgeoning crop of fashion designers. Where the Hilfiger project used IBM’s AI to target trends for design and creation, the current deal’s scope includes those things as well as product development, planning, allocation, merchandising, customer sales and service. The goal is to cover more areas of fashion retail, as “opportunities across the value chain,” Karl Haller, global leader for consumer center of competence at IBM Global Business Services, told WWD. “[Think of those] capabilities, combined with deep learning and natural language processing and natural language understanding,” Haller continued. “When you get into the product design and product development phases of the production calendar or the overall supply chain, there’s a lot of visual work that takes place early on — with designers going out and shooting images, sometimes fashion images, architectural images, home design or inspirations from people on the street.” A designer could spot a tile in Morocco, he continued, and envision a print on

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