Amazon ups its fashion game with new AI-backed feature, StyleSnap
Online retailer Amazon announced a new AI- powered feature called StyleSnap, which is trained on a series of images to give fashion and style recommendations.
One thing that we do almost every hour in the age of internet is spot great looks on Instagram with hashtags like outfit of the day (OOTD). With Amazon's new feature, this may now translate to great outfits in real life too.
On Thursday at the re: MARS 2019 conference, Amazon introduced StyleSnap, an AI-powered feature that fetches the desired look by taking a photograph or screenshot of it.
Announcing the feature at the re: MARS keynote, Consumer Worldwide CEO Jeff Wilke said,
“The simplicity of the customer experience belies the complexity of the technology behind it.”
The feature will be available on the Amazon app. To use it, a photo or screenshot of the look needs to be uploaded. Based on that, the AI-powered feature will give recommendations, considering other factors like brand, price range, and customer reviews as well.
The company said it will also help fashion influencers expand their reach and communities. In a statement to the media, Amazon explained how the machine learning techniques work in providing fashion recommendations, saying,
“Millions of artificial neurons are trained to detect images of outfits by feeding it a series of images. For example, if we feed a network thousands of images of maxi and accordion skirts, it will eventually be able to tell the difference between the two styles. But if presented with one Scottish kilt, it may be confused and predict an incorrect class until enough examples are provided to train it otherwise.”
Claiming to leverage artificial intelligence to make a real-world difference, Jeff Wilke said,
“We are highly innovative and customer-obsessed, and we will continue to create new experiences for customers to discover the products they want and love. We are incredibly excited about StyleSnap and how it enables our customers to shop visually for fashion on Amazon."
