Interview: what Stitch Fix can teach us about the future of retail

“Data is the new oil and artificial intelligence is the oil drill”. These words, uttered by senior ecommerce strategist Jorij Abraham, closed the last IAF World Fashion Convention, held in the Netherlands in October. They followed a seminar in which all panelists unanimously urged retailers to gather data to understand their customers and offer them a personalized service. “Those who fail to do so will be swept away by competition”, warned Jeff Streader, CEO of Go Global Retail. But there was one more thing they were unanimous about: that San Francisco-based Stitch Fix is the biggest example of a fashion company using artificial intelligence to successfully consolidate customer loyalty.