"Personalized party attire in Sicily: This online retailer employs AI technology to enhance shopping experiences"
Daydream, a new AI-powered shopping platform, is transforming the way we shop for fashion. Instead of the traditional search and filter methods, Daydream offers a conversational commerce experience that turns fashion discovery into an intuitive, chat-based interaction.
Users can interact with a conversational AI assistant by describing their style preferences and requirements in natural language. The AI understands these nuanced queries, curating personalized fashion options from a vast catalog of nearly 8,000 global brands. This approach mimics having a "digital personal shopper" or stylist, making the shopping process feel like a creative collaboration rather than a typical search or transactional experience.
Key features that define how Daydream works include:
- Conversational interaction: Users chat with the AI to articulate preferences instead of selecting rigid categories or filters.
- Personalized curation: The AI blends machine intelligence with human-curated style sensibilities to understand individual tastes, focusing strongly on joyful, inspiration-driven shopping rather than just transactional efficiency.
- Large brand catalog: Access to a broad and diverse range of brands, both established and emerging.
- Collection saving: Users can save liked items into collections, similar to Pinterest boards, to facilitate return visits and purchase decisions.
Daydream differentiates itself from similar AI-powered shopping services from Meta, OpenAI, and Amazon in several ways:
- User experience focus: Daydream prioritises a conversational, chat-based, stylist-like shopping experience, while Meta, OpenAI, and Amazon primarily use AI for enhanced search, ads targeting, and product recommendations.
- Personalization approach: Daydream combines AI with human-curated style sensibilities, while Meta, OpenAI, and Amazon mainly use AI for ad targeting and product listing.
- Shopping type: Daydream focuses on inspiration shopping, special occasions, and creative shopping, while Meta, OpenAI, and Amazon cater to broad transactional efficiency and listing.
- Platform origin: Daydream was built from the ground up as a conversational commerce platform, while AI was layered onto existing platforms and apps in the case of Meta, OpenAI, and Amazon.
- Catalog breadth: Daydream offers a wide variety of brands, including both established and emerging ones, while Meta, OpenAI, and Amazon's offerings are typically tied to their respective marketplaces.
- User interaction: Daydream allows for chat-based natural language dialogue, while Meta, OpenAI, and Amazon primarily use search bars and AI-assisted recommendations.
As Daydream continues to refine its AI models and collect user feedback, it is training its model to understand specific user preferences, such as clothing needs for a trip to Greece in August or a black-tie wedding. The platform operates like a digital personal stylist and does not require Boolean search terms, thanks to its AI text recognition technology.
Daydream's CEO, Julie Bornstein, has extensive experience in the fashion and retail industries, having worked for Nordstrom, Sephora, Stitch Fix, and The Yes (which she co-founded and sold to Pinterest). The platform directs shoppers to brand websites for purchases, taking a 20% cut of the sale.
Daydream has raised $50 million in its first round of funding from investors including Google Ventures and Karlie Kloss's Kode With Klossy. The platform is currently available as a web version and plans to release an app this fall.
With AI shopping tools becoming increasingly popular, a survey by Adobe Analytics showed that 39% of American consumers used a generative AI tool for online shopping last year, and 53% plan to do so this year. As AI continues to evolve, it is expected to be used for a range of fashion needs, such as pairing new purchases with existing items in a user's closet.
In summary, Daydream's distinctiveness lies in its fully conversational AI shopping assistant designed specifically for fashion discovery, combining emotional intelligence and style expertise to create a joyful, personalized process, contrasting with the more transactional, ad-driven AI applications in services from Meta, OpenAI, and Amazon.
In the realm of AI-driven shopping platforms, Daydream stands out by focusing on a chat-based, conversational experience that resembles a digital personal stylist, unlike competitors such as Meta, OpenAI, and Amazon which primarily rely on AI for enhanced search, ads targeting, and product recommendations. Furthermore, Daydream's AI is trained to understand specific user preferences like clothing necessities for a Greek vacation in August or a black-tie wedding, demonstrating its ability to cater to various fashion-and-beauty needs.
