What once seemed like science fiction is now embedded in everyday retail life. Artificial intelligence is rapidly reshaping how Australians shop for fashion online, with new data showing 81 per cent of shoppers in Australia and New Zealand have already used AI tools to help them make purchasing decisions. The shift spans everything from virtual try-ons to fully automated buying agents, and the pace of change is accelerating.
From Virtual Fitting Rooms to AI Shopping Agents
The journey began modestly. Back in 2023, Australian accessories label Oroton became one of the first local brands to experiment with augmented reality shopping, installing AR-enabled windows at the Queen Victoria Building in Sydney and Queen Street Mall in Brisbane. Passers-by could virtually try on bags without setting foot inside a store.
Since then, the technology has spread well beyond window displays. AI now plays an active role at nearly every stage of the online shopping experience, including fit recommendations, trend forecasting, virtual try-on tools and stock management systems. The question for most retailers is no longer whether to adopt AI, but how quickly they can build the systems to support it.
According to research by Stripe and Thoughtworks, most Australian and New Zealand shoppers currently use AI for advice rather than direct purchases. Kathryn Heffernan, Thoughtworks managing director for retail and travel in the Asia-Pacific region, says businesses are acutely aware of what is coming.
"Most use it for advice rather than buying, and the businesses we talk to are asking not whether this is coming, but how quickly they need to build the trust, capability and infrastructure to keep up," Heffernan said.
Agentic Commerce: AI That Shops While You Sleep
The next major frontier is agentic commerce, a technology where an AI assistant takes on the bulk of the shopping workload on a consumer's behalf. Spending on agentic commerce is projected to grow from $5 billion to $47 billion globally by 2030, a scale that signals it is more than a passing trend.
The concept is straightforward in practice. Rather than spending time searching, scrolling, filtering and comparing products across multiple browser tabs, a shopper can simply describe what they need. Something like "a cotton midi dress for a summer wedding under $300 that will arrive by the end of the week" is enough for an AI assistant to search across sites, find options in the right size, and compile a side-by-side comparison. With permission, the assistant can also complete the purchase outright.
Heffernan says the appeal is clear for time-poor consumers. "Comparing options is tedious: opening tabs, checking fabrics, decoding size charts. An AI assistant can read product descriptions, reviews and size guides in seconds and pull them into one side-by-side summary," she said.
She also argues the technology could encourage more considered purchasing. "Done well, it can also help people buy less but better. When it's easy to compare fabrics, care instructions and reviews, you can make a more considered choice rather than an impulse one." She added that the key is whether the tool is built to genuinely serve the shopper rather than simply push more sales, which is why consumer trust remains central to adoption.
What Designers Make of the AI Wave
Not everyone in the fashion industry is rushing to hand over creative control to algorithms. Melbourne-based designer Gautam Kapoor, founder of label Gotham, says AI has been useful for practical tasks such as coding his website and tracking sales data, but he draws a clear line when it comes to design itself.
"AI usually creates from what has already come before," Kapoor noted, pointing out that genuine design involves an iterative, back-and-forth creative process that does not lend itself easily to automation.
There is also the question of what is lost when shopping becomes frictionless. The slow, meditative process of browsing, discovering unexpected pieces and stumbling across something unplanned is part of fashion's appeal for many consumers, one that a highly efficient AI agent could inadvertently erase.
As the broader online retail landscape continues to evolve, the tension between convenience and the human side of shopping is likely to define how AI tools develop in the years ahead.
