Luxury fashion retailer Michael Kors has become the first company to use Mastercard’s new generative AI (genAI) shopping tool on its website.

Shopping Muse is designed to help Michael Kors customers find the right outfit and accessories for any occasion by translating customers’ colloquial language into tailored product recommendations.

The tool is developed by Mastercard’s personalisation platform Dynamic Yield, which it acquired in 2021. Shopping Muse aims to replicate the in-store experience by matching the behaviour and preferences of shoppers.

In its initial tests, Mastercard found that Shopping Muse generated a 15- 20 per cent higher conversion rate than traditional search queries.

The tool was launched in late 2023 and is now available to furniture retailers as well as fashion retailers.

“As a trailblazer in ready-to-wear fashion, Michael Kors is a perfect example of how to put our ready-to-use technology to use,” said Ori Bauer, chief executive of Dynamic Yield. “Shopping Muse is helping translate the signature Michael Kors service to the digital world, delivering a satisfying shopping experience as singular and impactful as the brand’s aesthetic.”

The move comes as many retailers look to new genAI tools to improve their operations and the customer experience.

In March, Puma announced it was rolling out Google Cloud’s data, analytics and AI technology as part of plans to improve its e-commerce offering. The sportswear giant said that the move would help it implement genAI shopping assistants, virtual try-ons, and AI-driven loyalty programmes.

Matalan also recently launched a genAI tool that creates detailed product descriptions for new items online in what it described as an "industry first". It allows the British fashion and homeware retailer to create a hundred product descriptions in 30 minutes using product metadata and imagery with “absolute minimum" data input. This compares to the maximum of a hundred descriptions per day by Matalan copywriters.

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