The Vogue Business AI Tracker keeps a record of the most important AI developments that will influence our industry and our world, each week. From venture capital investments and startup launches to product drops and regulatory updates, we’ll make sure you never miss a beat when it comes to the AI news that matters.

November 11, 2025

The news: Snapchat owner inks deal with Perplexity to introduce AI search.

Why it matters: Snap Inc, the parent company of Snapchat, saw its shares surge up to 16% this week, after announcing a $400 million partnership with Open AI rival Perplexity AI, to integrate its AI search engine within the Snapchat app. From early 2026, Perplexity will appear in the Snapchat Chat interface, so that its nearly one billion monthly active users can ask questions on any topic and yield real-time conversational answers, powered by Perplexity’s generative AI.

The deal opens up a big new revenue stream for Snap, which will charge Perplexity $400 million over the course of a year to access its user base. Perplexity has recently been embroiled in a number of copyright infringement cases, including from News Corp, as well as a recent lawsuit from Amazon over the use of its AI agent to shop on customers’ behalves without their consent. The deal with Snap gives the platform some timely validation. In a statement announcing the news, Snap made clear its AI ambitions, saying: “The partnership underscores Snap’s growing role as a trusted platform for AI partners to reach a large, engaged, mobile-native audience.” Meanwhile, Snapchat will also use the conversations users have with Perplexity to “help enhance personalization on Snapchat”, doubling as a clear in-app ad revenue driver.

The news: Pinterest CEO says platform is exploring the potential for agentic shopping.

Why it matters: On Pinterest’s Q3 earnings call, investors wanted to know what the social platform is planning for the future of agentic commerce. CEO Bill Ready told investors that Pinterest already offers “push button-type shopping” through its partnership with Amazon, and it is gathering data to see if users actually want its AI model to “push the button for them”. The questions come a couple of weeks after Pinterest announced it will soon launch a voice-enabled AI shopping assistant, which allows Pinterest users to talk to the platform about what they’re searching and shopping for. This will yield personalized recommendations drawing from users’ saved pins and collections.

4 November 2025

The news: Nvidia becomes the world’s first $5 trillion company

Why it matters: Three years ago, before the arrival of generative AI chatbots like ChatGPT, Nvidia’s valuation was $400 billion. Last week, it became the first $5 trillion company in the world. Nvidia makes software and hardware like graphics processing units (GPUs) and chips that power AI models. CEO Jensen Huang said the company had already secured $500 billion in orders of its AI chips for the next five quarters, which sent its stock rallying. Nvidia’s record-breaking valuation signals just how much promise investors believe AI technology has — but it also comes at a time when there is limited data showing how AI has improved efficiencies. Talks of an AI bubble are rife, and every bubble has to burst. Fashion companies using AI tools may not be affected by an investor bubble bursting, but it would send shockwaves through markets if the tech doesn’t live up to its promise.

The news: Amazon cuts 14,000 jobs amid AI push

Why it matters: Last week, Amazon joined the growing cohort of blue-chip companies across the world announcing sweeping workforce cuts. The Big Tech company said it would cut up to 14,000 jobs from its corporate workforce. It comes a week after Target announced it was cutting 8% of its corporate staff (around 1,800 jobs) in its first major round of layoffs in 10 years. Although neither company directly attributed the cuts to AI, analysts have pointed to what they both have in common: the cuts are being made to white-collar roles within corporate teams, which are viewed as particularly ripe for AI automation, rather than jobs within their factories. It’ll be interesting to see if more retailers follow suit — and if this corporate focus becomes a trend.

28 October 2025

The news: Aerie releases “real people” anti-AI campaign.

Why it matters: Aerie, American Eagle Outfitters’s lounge and lingerie brand, last week released an Instagram campaign with a strong anti-AI message. “Real creativity at its best. Here’s our team, behind the scenes of our holiday shoot. No retouching. No AI. 100 per cent Aerie Real,” read the caption accompanying the campaign launch post, which features BTS shots of Aerie’s festive campaign shoot cast and crew. The brand, which previously swore off Photoshop in its campaigns, has been known to centre its messaging around human “realness”; this latest effort underscores how divisive AI-made campaigns have become.

While some advocates for AI images argue they get rid of creative constraints, the biggest backlash against brand experiments with AI-generated images so far has surrounded campaigns that seem like they could have been made without AI. Some analysts say that human-made content will soon become the ultimate marker of luxury. Will more brands follow Aerie’s lead this festive season?

The news: Meta is reportedly laying off 600 employees from its AI division.

Why it matters: Facebook and Instagram owner Meta is cutting some 600 staff from its so-called Superintelligence unit, the company’s AI division, according to multiple reports. The news was first reported by Axios, who cited an internal employee memo. “By reducing the size of our team, fewer conversations will be required to make a decision, and each person will be more load-bearing and have more scope and impact,” Meta’s chief AI officer Alexandr Wang wrote in the memo to employees, according to Axios’s report. It’s a turnaround after the company went on an AI hiring spree earlier this year, that included the hiring of Wang himself, and comes amid broader speculation that the tech industry is heading for an “AI bubble” that has seen AI companies receive mega investment before delivering on business fundamentals. Investors’ eyes will be closely watching Meta’s competitors to see if they soon follow suit.

21 October 2025

The news: Frasers Group partners with Commercetools to build out agentic AI capabilities.

Why it matters: In September, ChatGPT launched its “agentic commerce protocol” (ACP), an open-source tech standard that allows various AI agents from companies like Perplexity, Google and Microsoft to interact with each other, connect to different commerce systems and complete purchases, in partnership with Shopify and Commercetools. Now, Frasers Group is working with Commercetools to become one of the first European retailers to roll out two agentic commerce products, AI Hub and Agent Gateway.

The company said this partnership will allow shoppers to discover and purchase products from Frasers Group’s retailers like Sports Direct and Flannels directly within AI shopping channels such as ChatGPT and Google AI when their integrated checkout features land in Europe. It’s the first major announcement from a European retailer indicating an intention to launch AI shopping agents — which would search, select and purchase products on behalf of the customer — when the tech is ready.

The news: Pinterest introduces the option for users to remove AI-generated content from their feeds.

Why it matters: Pinterest’s new controls allow users to personalise their feeds and opt out of seeing AI-generated imagery across specific categories, including home decor and beauty, as well as men’s, women’s and children’s fashion. The tech company said it will also make its existing AI-generated labels more noticeable in the coming days. For Pinterest, it’s a move that indicates just how business-critical transparency is around AI, and gives us an idea of the intensity of the backlash the platform has received against such content — a highly controversial subject when it comes to creative forms like image and video.

14 October 2025

The news: Revolve launches AI-powered personal styling tool.

Why it matters: The US multi-brand retailer tapped fashion entrepreneur Sandy Sholl’s AI startup Zelig to power its new ‘Build a Look’ onsite feature. Revolve customers can now mix and match items from the site and style them on digital avatar models — all enabled by Zelig’s combination of generative AI and computer vision, as well as input from IRL stylists, the brands claim. Revolve has also launched a “digital closet” feature for shoppers to save desired items as well as those purchased. It’s the latest personalisation play from an online retailer, as they race to enhance their websites with the latest AI capabilities, to retain engagement as more shoppers adopt AI search. While individual brands like Ralph Lauren and Moncler are investing in bespoke features that replicate their in-store experiences online, for multi-brand players, retaining a USP in the age of AI is an even tougher challenge.

The news: OpenAI’s Sora app hits one million downloads, faster than ChatGPT.

Why it matters: OpenAI exec Bill Peebles, who is in charge of the tech firm’s new Sora video-generation app, announced that Sora reached one million app downloads in under five days — a faster take-up than when the company released ChatGPT in November 2022. It gives us an idea of just how high consumer demand is for visual experiments through AI — the app is currently invite-only and available exclusively to users in North America. It also comes amid creator copyright concerns over the AI’s use of their work. If the app grows rapidly before the company has proper controls and protections in place, there could soon be a vast amount of AI-generated content published with likenesses to original works.

7 October 2025

The news: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman promises creators more “granular” controls over Sora 2’s content usage.

Why it matters: Just four days after OpenAI launched Sora 2, its new invite-only video generation app, CEO Sam Altman took to his online blog to promise creators of copyrighted characters more “granular” controls, “similar to the opt-in model for likeness but with additional controls”, over the use of their creations by the app. He said the company had been “taking feedback” from rightsholders and app users and would work to “fix the missteps very quickly” as it develops OpenAI’s video generation tools. This prompt response from Altman reflects just how contentious image use for AI tools is right now, while wider regulation to protect creatives’ IP is yet to be seen. For now, legal experts say for brands wanting to experiment with AI images and video, the onus is on them to establish permissions from creators and properly attribute their use, to avoid individual copyright cases.

30 September 2025

The news: California Governor Gavin Newsom signs AI safety law.

Why it matters: It’s the first in-nation law that forces developers at major US-based AI companies to publicly disclose their AI safety and security protocols, and includes whistleblower protections for AI workers, in what analysts are saying could set a benchmark for other states to follow. But it also moves in direct opposition to Trump’s recent AI action plan, which all but deregulates the development of AI at these companies on a national level. As the state that houses much of the Silicon Valley tech companies at the forefront of AI development, California is the closest to their inner workings, but brands operating at a national level will need to watch how other regional governments react, and if this policy influences the ongoing regulation battle at a federal level.

The news: OpenAI launches ChatGPT Checkout.

Why it matters: Instant Checkout removes the friction for ChatGPT users — where they previously searched and discovered products on ChatGPT, before clicking through to make the purchase on a brand’s own site, this new feature omits that final step, shortening the purchase journey. It has big implications for brands’ partnership decisions, advertising strategies, and how they design their websites to appeal to both human customers and LLM “crawlers”. Find out more about what it means for fashion here.

23 September 2025

The news: Meta debuts three new AI smart glasses models, but demos fail.

Why it matters: At Meta’s annual Meta Connect conference on 17 September in California, Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg unveiled the first AI smart glasses with an in-lens display, the Meta Display glasses, designed to replace the wearer’s need to get out their phone. But the live tech demos featured a couple of glitches. A demo of the AI glasses’ ability to interpret cooking ingredients in front of the lenses and give the wearer recipe instructions misinterpreted the selection of raw ingredients as a half-cooked dish, and the glasses failed to pick up a live Whatsapp video call demo between Zuckerberg and Meta CTO Andrew Bosworth.

Bosworth later took to Instagram to explain why the demos went wrong. It wasn’t down to the Wi-Fi, as Zuckerberg suggested onstage, but down to the amount of Meta AI glasses in close proximity during the demo, which caused a flood of traffic to Meta’s live AI server, according to Bosworth. It’s a reminder of just how many pieces of the puzzle are required for this nascent tech to function. At $799 a pop, consumers will expect their buzzy AI glasses to work, so Meta has its work cut out to fix any bugs before they become available for US consumers at the end of the month.

16 September 2025

The news: US Federal Trade Commission launches inquiry into AI ‘companions’ used by teens.

Why it matters: Tech companies including OpenAI, Meta and Google are being probed by the US regulator over AI chatbots that provide “companionship”, after a series of high-profile suicides and harm among young people linked to their interactions with the tech. The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has ordered the companies to share information about how their AI chatbots develop characters and personas, and how they monetise this kind of engagement. It’s also asking tech firms to disclose what measures they have in place to avoid harm, especially among young people, and how they handle personal data from the conversations.

Given that a primary hesitation among luxury brands in their adoption of AI is the risk of losing consumer trust, the industry should watch the case closely. As user trust in conversations with generative AI grows, analysts say this trust will extend to other online activities like shopping. But as AI regulation becomes increasingly fragmented, more of the onus is on brands to develop their own guardrails. The results of the inquiry should provide key insights for brands that are grappling with developing their own AI ethics, and could inform industry standards in future.

9 September 2025

The news: Fraudsters use AI to fake defects on resale platforms.

Why it matters: A disturbing trend has been called out on fashion social media this week — some buyers on resale platforms are using AI image generators to fake defects on received items to get refunds. On resale platforms, trust hangs in the balance between a seller’s description of their garment condition and what the item actually looks like. Although a number of the fake defect attempts called out on social media are amusingly bad, some are more realistic, thanks to recent improvements in AI image generators and their usage becoming more commonplace. When Vogue Business reached out to the main resale platforms, they said this was not yet a business concern — suggesting that this type of fraud is still in its infancy. But in order to retain trust, resale platforms will have to stay on the front foot of this new risk, which could mean investing in an enhanced verification process like videos for buyers making defect claims, which is an added cost for the platforms that could be passed onto users. Vinted told Vogue Business it is “closely monitoring the evolving use of AI among our members to ensure it remains consistent with the platform’s usage guidelines”.

The news: Shein appears to use an AI Luigi Mangione as a T-shirt model.

Why it matters: Shein has opened an internal investigation after the product image for a men’s shirt listing on its website featured a model that resembled Luigi Mangione, the person accused of killing UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson last year. The online retailer has now taken down the image, and told press in a statement: “The image in question was provided by a third-party vendor and was removed immediately upon discovery.” But the image was online long enough to be shared widely on social media, with speculation surrounding whether it was generated using AI. Mangione has amassed a cult following among some in the US who frame him as a folk hero, in opposition to the US healthcare system. This fuelled a surge of clothing emblazoned with Mangione’s face and name being sold online on retailers like Etsy and Ebay. Connecting the dots, this incident is a stark reminder of the importance of human oversight at brands experimenting with AI for more routine image needs like product listings. And it’s a very stark reminder of how undiscerning the AI image generators themselves are at this point — they crawl the good, the bad and the ugly of the internet to produce their images.

The news: Amazon launches Lens Live instant AI image scanning tool.

Why it matters: Amazon already had a visual search tool, Amazon Lens, which allowed customers to upload images or scan barcodes to discover products. But this new live component brings the retailer more in line with Google Lens and Pinterest Lens — shoppers can now point their phones at things they see before them in the real world, and Amazon’s app will suggest similar or matching products on its platform. The new feature will initially be rolled out to “tens of millions” shoppers in the US, and the company has not said when it will be rolled out to further US customers or into other markets. The live lens feature will also integrate with Amazon’s AI shopping assistant Rufus for more product information. It’s clear that Amazon is investing big in its AI-powered shopping features, and this represents the biggest multimodal search development on a retailer’s own platform thus far. How long until competitors follow suit?

1 September 2025

The news: ChatGPT-5 meets critique.

Why it matters: The initial buzz around the launch of ChatGPT-5 and its “PhD-level” knowledge this month has wound down, amid criticisms of the update as somewhat underwhelming. Social media users, tech influencers and journalists abound have commented on the tool’s tendency to “hallucinate” as well as only marginal improvements in its natural language style. One thing that could benefit fashion, however, is OpenAI’s big new emphasis on health — the company wants users to consult ChatGPT like their doctor. But why does this affect fashion brands? Experts tell me that when users are confiding in the tool about their health, and it’s giving them useful recommendations, their trust in the tool will increase exponentially. Trust will likely then extend to other avenues, such as shopping queries and style advice. Let’s see how this plays out in the coming months.

The news: J Crew sparks backlash for unlabelled AI campaign imagery.

Why it matters: This week, newsletter Blackbird Spyplane published a visual investigation of J Crew’s latest campaign — the launch of a collab with Vans — in which the images gave a strong indication they’d been generated by AI. Spyplane managed to uncover the creator of the images — AI photographer Sam Finn. This sparked widespread backlash on social media and within fashion communities, partly because the brand hadn’t credited the use of AI for its images, and partly because, as Spyplane put it, J Crew had “used AI to counterfeit their own vibes”. The images in question resemble J Crew’s catalogue imagery from its late ’80s to early ’90s heyday, which made the use of AI for such an authentic vintage aesthetic even more puzzling to internet critics. The brand has yet to confirm its use of AI, but it did update the campaign instagram post to credit Finn for the “digital art”. (J Crew has not responded to Vogue Business’s request for comment on the campaign.) It’s the latest in a string of AI image controversies across fashion that shows just how thorny the issue is within creative communities. Is there a way that fashion brands can get AI images right?

The news: Meta partners with Midjourney on AI images and video.

Why it matters: Meta made its first move into AI image generation last year, when it launched image generation tool Imagine on its Facebook, Instagram and Messenger platforms. Now, it’s partnering with Midjourney — which is widely viewed as one of the best AI image generation tools on the market — to “bring beauty to billions”, according to chief AI officer Alexandr Wang. It’s the latest move from Meta in its huge AI investment push, and could now enable it to develop image and video products that compete with Google’s Veo and OpenAI’s Sora — and could impact the visual content consumers grow more accustomed to seeing on its social platforms.

26 August 2025

The news: Meta is implementing an AI hiring freeze, according to a report from The Wall Street Journal.

Why it matters: After spending the past few months hiring over 50 AI researchers, Meta has hit pause, the tech giant confirmed to The Wall Street Journal. The hiring freeze coincides with a wider restructuring of Meta’s AI teams, which involves splitting them into four divisions. As AI becomes an increasing priority, businesses are not only competing in an AI talent war, but they are having to figure out the internal infrastructures, too. Already, investors are concerned about the stock-based compensation tech giants are offering AI talent, which could dilute shareholder value.

The news: Google adds agentic capabilities to AI Mode search function.

Why it matters: The agentic update allows AI Mode to make restaurant reservations with multiple constraints and preferences (“I only have an hour and need a quick lunch spot, any suggestions?”). The feature will soon expand to local service appointments and event tickets. The update signals a major step towards AI assistants functioning as agents and navigating real-world systems, rather than just a smart search engine. AI Mode has previously only been available in the US, the UK and India, but now Google has rolled it out to over 180 additional countries.

The news: Meta is offering AI translations for creators to expand their global reach.

Why it matters: Meta AI translations — a tool that dubs and lip-syncs reels on Facebook and Instagram into another language — will now be available for English to Spanish and Spanish to English translations, with further languages in the pipeline. The move has the potential to help creators grow audiences in new markets, boosting the creator economy even further.

19 August 2025

The news: ChatGPT-5 launches for businesses.

Why it matters: Hot on the heels of OpenAI’s rollout of ChatGPT-5 to consumers and developers last week, the company has extended the model to its enterprise customers. Spanish bank BBVA and Zara owner Inditex have already adopted the updated tool — Inditex data and AI lead Oscar Mateos took to LinkedIn to say, “GPT-5 feels less like a tool and more like an expert collaborator who’s always one step ahead.” Who will be the first luxury conglomerate to adopt the upgraded tech?

13 August 2025

The news: Stitch Fix announces AI shopping updates in personalisation push.

Why it matters: Stitch Fix is seeking a competitive edge as several dedicated, AI-powered personal styling startups burst onto the scene — including Daydream, which was founded by former Stitch Fix COO Julie Bornstein, and has so far raised $50 million in funding to support its development. Stitch Fix has previously deployed AI to understand personal style and predict trends, but claims that a new suite of AI-powered personal styling features will “increase personalisation, convenience and inspiration” for its users. The updated features include: an AI style assistant for customers, which uses generative AI to suggest outfit inspiration based on the taste profile it builds from their data over time; a “Stylist Connect” platform for customers to chat to human stylists; virtual try-on “personalised AI style visualisation”; and AI design integration for its private brands.

12 August 2025

The news: OpenAI launches ChatGPT-5, touting its knowledge as a “major upgrade” from ChatGPT-4.

Why it matters: We’ve been waiting for this update for a while (the last GPT-4 update was in March 2023), and the developments within OpenAI’s technology are a key indicator of how far AI has come, and what brands should know it can do. In OpenAI CEO Sam Altman’s words, “GPT-3 sort of felt like talking to a high school student, GPT-4, maybe it was like talking to a college student. But with GPT-5, now it’s like talking to an expert, a PhD-level expert in anything, any area you need, on demand.” OpenAI also says its new model beats the LLMs from competitors Google, X and Anthropic. Perhaps most interestingly for brands, Open AI says the new model is more conversational than ever, which could have implications for customer interactions with their brands both in ChatGPT search for shopping, and their chatbot interactions.

The news: Pinterest CEO pitches the platform as an “AI-enabled shopping assistant”.

Why it matters: In the company’s second-quarter earnings call, Pinterest CEO Bill Ready said the app’s users don’t necessarily think of it as a shopping platform, but that its experiments with AI mean they’re actually getting proactive recommendations for products that “align with their taste and their style, the way a really great personal shopping assistant would”. Ready said the platform is also using multimodal AI (combining text and images), AI for visual search, and AI for conversational search. It’s one to watch for brands, as consumers move to more niche social platforms for product discovery.

The news: Google says AI search is increasing, not decreasing, traffic to websites — but doesn’t share data to back up its claims.

Why it matters: Some industry analysts suggest that the rise in AI-powered conversational search is decreasing organic traffic to websites. This week, Google rebuffed these claims as “inaccurate”. “Average click quality has increased and we’re actually sending slightly more quality clicks to websites than a year ago (by quality clicks, we mean those where users don’t quickly click back — typically a signal that a user is interested in the website),” Google’s head of search Liz Reid wrote in a blog post. Yet the blog cited no data — and the reports it was challenging do. Google isn’t the only AI-powered search engine, either. ChatGPT is increasingly being used for consumers’ shopping searches. AI optimisation is emerging among marketers to try to increase their sites’ chances of appearing in search — here’s what brands need to know about the nascent practice.

5 August 2025

The news: Mark Zuckerberg says those without AI smart glasses will be at a “significant cognitive disadvantage” in future.

Why it matters: Meta had a big week last week, beating revenue and profit expectations in its second-quarter earnings. It’s good news for CEO Mark Zuckerberg, who has been investing heavily in AI, and will be wanting to reassure investors that the company is in a position to do so. Zuckerberg seized the good news opportunity to go in even harder on the company’s AI ambitions. Not only did he announce that the company’s AI models will soon reach human-like “superintelligence”, but he reinforced his belief that AI-powered glasses will be the primary way humans interact with AI in coming years.

“I continue to think that glasses are basically going to be the ideal form factor for AI,“ Zuckerberg told investors on the earnings call. “I think in the future, if you don’t have glasses that have AI — or some way to interact with AI — you’re probably going to be at a pretty significant cognitive disadvantage.” Meta has something of a first-mover advantage in the world of smart glasses, but Google, OpenAI and Apple are among the other Big Tech players investing in wearables’ AI promise. Read more about Meta’s smart glasses moves here.

The news: Experts say AI is developing much faster than expected.

Why it matters: We’re used to tech CEOs shouting about the potential of AI. But when experts including Nobel Prize winner Geoffrey Hinton say the technology is developing much faster than they ever anticipated, it adds even more fuel to the fire. Examples of AI models’ accelerating developments are everywhere: this week, Meta’s model began correcting itself.

Since Trump more or less deregulated the sector in the US, there’s barely anything standing in these companies’ way. This means global brands need to get to work on developing internal AI guardrails, especially if they’re handling lots of consumer data across jurisdictions (like the EU) that are stricter on AI.

The news: Apple says it is “very open” to acquisitions this year to catch up to competitors on AI.

Why it matters: Apple has got some stick for being slower to the so-called ‘AI race’ than its Big Tech peers, which is mostly down to the company’s prioritisation of protecting consumer data and privacy. At the company’s earnings this week, though, CEO Tim Cook was eager to show investors it’s willing to spend more. “We’re very open to M&A that accelerates our roadmap,” he said. “We are not stuck on a certain size company, although the ones that we have acquired thus far this year are small in nature.” Much of the company’s acquisitions so far have focused on music, events and AI. It’s worth keeping an eye out for any wearables-related acquisitions in the coming months, given the ubiquity of the company’s audio devices.

29 July 2025

The news: Google launches AI shopping mode in the UK.

Why it matters: Google launched its AI Mode search feature for shopping in the US in May, and the UK rollout this week indicates its plans to expand the number of consumers who shop using the feature — and fast. AI Mode uses Google’s generative AI tool to produce a chat-style interface for users, giving them a conversational search experience in which they can converse back and forth, and ask more specific questions. Three other AI shopping features rolled out on Google in the US — virtual try-on, Gemini-powered personalised shopping recommendations, and agentic price-match comparisons — are yet to be announced in the UK.

It’s particularly relevant for shopping. Some 80 per cent of consumers now rely on AI-written results for at least 40 per cent of their searches, according to Bain & Co. All this means ad agencies and marketing teams have shifted their focuses from SEO (search engine optimisation) to what’s been coined “AIO” (AI optimisation). Learn more about emerging AIO practices in fashion here.

The news: UK government signs “strategic partnership” with OpenAI in AI investment push.

Why it matters: The UK is eager not to get left behind in the so-called ‘AI race’ between the US, Europe and China, and this is the latest sign it’s keen to attract more investment to Britain’s AI sector. The government’s plans to use more of OpenAI’s technology to deliver public services will likely mean that the technology is trained on citizen data. In turn, OpenAI is planning on hiring more UK staff for its research and engineering teams, and increasing the size of its London office, as per the plan. ChatGPT maker OpenAI is currently one of the most powerful companies in the world, and President Trump’s new AI Action Plan shows how eager each government is to persuade the tech company — and its competitors — to develop their tech on their soil.

The news: Trump unveils US AI Action Plan and signs three AI executive orders.

Why it matters: The 28-page ‘AI Action Plan’ aims to build out the country’s AI infrastructure, cement America’s dominance in the industry and prohibit all federal agencies from using AI contractors that don’t comply with the White House’s definition of “ideological neutrality”. The new policies reverse several Biden-era federal AI safeguards related to DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) and climate change, block state-level regulations on AI and further relax export rules so that global companies rely deeper on US-built AI. The move to get rid of existing AI regulations places further onus on individual companies to establish their own AI guardrails, especially if they operate across countries and jurisdictions. The US-centric policy also presents key challenges for fashion’s global supply chain and consumer base, which you can read more about here.

22 July 2025

The news: OpenAI has shown some brands a pilot of a checkout feature that would enable users to complete purchases within its ChatGPT platform, according to a report by the Financial Times. It would charge brands commission for sales made this way.

Why it matters: When users search for products, ChatGPT currently shows recommendations with links to click through to brands’ own e-commerce sites. Bypassing this step opens up a clear revenue stream for OpenAI, but could significantly impact brands’ online sales. Those whose websites are picked up easier by ChatGPT would hold a significant advantage over those whose aren’t. No one’s quite sure what makes large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT tick yet, but there are some key practices emerging that could help brands optimise for AI search.

The news: WeTransfer has U-turned on plans to use UGC to train AI, after a revision in its terms of service caused widespread backlash.

Why it matters: Copyright protection has long been in place to safeguard creatives like photographers against their work being used without permission. Tech companies’ training of AI models on their work is proving a thorny issue within the fashion and creative industries, as it poses a risk of copies, duplication and direct competition — ultimately threatening their source of income. Given that WeTransfer is widely used within the creative industries, the company’s U-turn represents the perceived reputational risk that openly training AI models on creative work can cause.

The news: Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has said the company will build a data centre “the size of Manhattan” to fuel its planned development of AI products.

Why it matters: It’s the latest in a string of moves from Meta — which owns Instagram, Whatsapp and Facebook — that demonstrate the scale of the investment it’s making in developing AI products. Data centres are hugely expensive to build and maintain, and the size of what Zuckerberg is suggesting would cost billions of dollars. Zuckerberg has been very bullish on the potential for the company’s AI smart glasses in particular, and talk of Meta buying a stake in its Ray-Ban Meta AI glasses co-creator EssilorLuxottica has intensified in the last month.

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