Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba launched its'glimpse' into what the future of fashion is last month, a project it has called FashionAI. Alongside Italian fashion house Guess, it created a pop-up concept store on the Hong Kong Polytechnic University grounds, to show Guess's retail experience, alongside Alibaba's latest AI technology. Alibaba will now look to integrate the FashionAI technology into new projects and with other brands but The Drum caught up with Menglei Jia, Senior Staff Engineer, Vision and Beauty, Alibaba Group, senior staff engineer, vision and beauty at Alibaba Group, to find out how the collaboration with Guess had been received. According to Jia, the FashionAI project has been underway for a long time. "FashionAI is a new artificial intelligence concept that aims at exploring new format for fashion stores for the future. We have devoted almost seven years to develop, train and refine this technology that will ultimately create a difference to both customers and retailers."

In February 2018 Alibaba Cloud launched Cloud and AI Solutions in Europe to meet changing needs in digital transformation. The company rolled out an array of products at the Mobile World Congress to meet the surging demand for powerful and reliable cloud computing services as well as advanced AI solutions among European enterprises to support them to capture opportunities in this digital transformation era. Today, the Alibaba Group has announced the launch of their new retail experience powered by Alibaba FashionAI. Strategically partnering up with GUESS on the FashionAI project, Alibaba has come up with a way for customers to experience personalised mix-and-match recommendations from Alibaba's FashionAI. Scheduled to be open to the public on the 5th- 7th July 2018, the concept store will house garments and accessories by GUESS.

You can try Amazon's Echo Look if you want AI to offer fashion advice at home. But what if you're at the store, and would rather not hem and haw while you decide if that top goes with those jeans? Guess and Alibaba think they can help. They've worked together on an AI system, FashionAI, that uses computer vision to help you create an entire outfit while you're shopping. A smart mirror can recognize the color, style and traits of what you're holding (such as the neckline) and suggest other items that would be a good complement, including clothes you've already bought online.

Alibaba recently demonstrated the difference it could make with record sales for this year's Single's Day in China. This marriage of fashion and AI signals possibilities for shoppers. The volume of sales for this year's Single's Day through Alibaba's sites amounted to $9.3 billion this year, compared to $5.9 billion last year. Technology use played a major role in that surge of sales, as nearly half the orders this year came through smartphones; over double the 2016 number. However, another form of technology was also involved: AI.

On the third floor of a shopping mall in the heart of Shanghai last week, Xiaolan He, a woman in her 50s, took an olive-green down jacket to a fitting room. To her surprise, she found a screen about the size of a large poster on the wall. It recognized the item of clothing in her hands through a tiny sensor embedded in the garment, and showed several options for matching items that she could flip through like a photo album. The screen, and the system that powers it, make up FashionAI--which essentially became He's personal stylist. FashionAI received its first big wave of customers on Saturday during Singles' Day, a Chinese shopping festival started by Alibaba in 2009 and held on November 11 each year.

On the third floor of a shopping mall in the heart of Shanghai last week, Xiaolan He, a woman in her 50s, took an olive-green down jacket to a fitting room. To her surprise, she found a screen about the size of a large poster on the wall. It recognized the item of clothing in her hands through a tiny sensor embedded in the garment, and showed several options for matching items that she could flip through like a photo album. The screen, and the system that powers it, make up FashionAI--which essentially became He's personal stylist. FashionAI received its first big wave of customers on Saturday during Singles' Day, a Chinese shopping festival started by Alibaba in 2009 and held on November 11 each year.

Alibaba set a new Singles' Day record this Saturday by selling a staggering $25 billion worth of goods. The company also quietly tested a technology that could help it reinvent retail using artificial intelligence. On the third floor of a shopping mall in the heart of Shanghai last week, Xiaolan He, a woman in her 50s, took an olive green, down jacket to a fitting room. To her surprise, she found a screen about the size of a large poster on the wall. It recognized the item of clothing in her hands through a tiny sensor embedded in the garment, and showed several options for matching items that she could flip through like a photo album.