AI in fashion statistics 2026
Verified figures on how the fashion and apparel business is adopting, funding and governing artificial intelligence, each linked to its original source.
Artificial intelligence has moved from pilot projects to everyday tools in parts of the fashion business, from generated product imagery and copy to shopping assistants and returns fraud detection. Yet hard numbers remain scattered across consultancy surveys, official statistics and company disclosures, and many figures circulating online cannot be traced to a source.
This page collects statistics we have checked against the original publication. Each entry states what was measured, among whom and when, and flags forecasts and estimates as such. We update the page as new primary data is published.
Adoption
More than 35% of fashion and luxury executives surveyed for the BoF-McKinsey State of Fashion 2026 report said their companies were already using generative AI in areas such as online customer service, image creation, copywriting, consumer search or product discovery.
McKinsey & Company and The Business of Fashion, The State of Fashion 2026: When the rules change, 202573% of global fashion executives surveyed for the State of Fashion 2024 Executive Survey said generative AI would be a key priority for their businesses in the following year.
McKinsey & Company, Gen AI is so hot right now (chart based on the BoF-McKinsey State of Fashion 2024 Executive Survey), 202462% of fashion leaders in the same State of Fashion 2024 survey said their companies already used generative AI, for example for online shopping assistance and writing product descriptions; this is a different survey wave and question from the 2026 figure above.
McKinsey & Company, Gen AI is so hot right now (chart based on the BoF-McKinsey State of Fashion 2024 Executive Survey), 2024In the State of Fashion 2024 Executive Survey, marketing and copywriting was the most cited generative AI use case (34% of respondents), followed by design and product development (28%).
McKinsey & Company, Gen AI is so hot right now (chart based on the BoF-McKinsey State of Fashion 2024 Executive Survey), 2024A McKinsey partner said in February 2026 that about 90% of AI projects in the fashion industry had stalled at the pilot phase; this is a practitioner estimate given in a webinar discussion, not a survey result.
McKinsey & Company, What to expect in the global fashion industry in 2026, 202619.95% of EU enterprises with 10 or more employees used at least one AI technology in 2025, up from 13.48% in 2024.
Eurostat, Use of artificial intelligence in enterprises (Statistics Explained), data extracted December 2025Among EU retail trade enterprises that used AI in 2025, 48.18% used it for marketing or sales, one of the highest shares of any sector for that purpose.
Eurostat, Use of artificial intelligence in enterprises (Statistics Explained), data extracted December 2025Nearly nine in ten respondents to McKinsey's global State of AI survey (1,719 respondents, fielded May to June 2026, all industries) reported regular use of AI in at least one business function.
McKinsey & Company, The state of AI in 2026: On the road to ROI, 2026Investment and market estimates
McKinsey estimated in 2023 that generative AI could add $150 billion conservatively, and up to $275 billion, to the operating profits of the apparel, fashion and luxury sectors within three to five years; this is a forecast.
McKinsey & Company, Generative AI: Unlocking the future of fashion, 2023McKinsey estimated in 2023 that generative AI could generate $400 billion to $660 billion a year in value for the retail and consumer packaged goods industries; this is a modelled estimate.
McKinsey & Company, The economic potential of generative AI: The next productivity frontier, 2023Fashion companies invested between 1.6% and 1.8% of their revenues in technology in 2021, a share McKinsey and BoF expected to rise to between 3.0% and 3.5% by 2030 (forecast).
McKinsey & Company and The Business of Fashion, The State of Fashion: Technology, 2022McKinsey and BoF estimated in 2022 that fashion companies embedding AI into their business models could see a 118% cumulative increase in cash flow by 2030, while slower digital investors could see a 23% relative decline; both figures are projections.
McKinsey & Company and The Business of Fashion, The State of Fashion: Technology, 2022Gartner forecast that worldwide spending on generative AI would total $644 billion in 2025, up 76.4% on 2024, with around 80% of it going on hardware; this covers all industries.
Gartner, Gartner forecasts worldwide GenAI spending to reach $644 billion in 2025 (press release), 2025McKinsey estimated in October 2025 that agentic commerce could orchestrate up to $1 trillion of US B2C retail revenue by 2030, with global projections of $3 trillion to $5 trillion; these are forecasts across all retail categories.
McKinsey & Company, The agentic commerce opportunity: How AI agents are ushering in a new era for consumers and merchants, 2025Gartner predicted in June 2025 that more than 40% of agentic AI projects (all industries) will be cancelled by the end of 2027 because of escalating costs, unclear business value or inadequate risk controls.
Gartner, Gartner predicts over 40 percent of agentic AI projects will be canceled by end of 2027 (press release), 2025Gartner predicted that 33% of enterprise software applications will include agentic AI by 2028, up from less than 1% in 2024 (forecast, all industries).
Gartner, Gartner predicts over 40 percent of agentic AI projects will be canceled by end of 2027 (press release), 2025Consumers and AI-assisted shopping
71% of 12,000 consumers surveyed in 12 countries in October and November 2024 said they wanted generative AI integrated into their purchasing experiences.
Capgemini Research Institute, What matters to today's consumer 2025 (press release), 202558% of consumers in the same Capgemini survey said they had replaced traditional search engines with generative AI tools as their go-to source for product or service recommendations, up from 25% in 2023.
Capgemini Research Institute, What matters to today's consumer 2025 (press release), 2025A quarter of consumers in the Capgemini survey said they trusted AI influencers (avatars created with AI) and had made purchases based on their recommendations.
Capgemini Research Institute, What matters to today's consumer 2025 (press release), 2025Shopping-related use of generative AI grew by 35% between February and November 2025 among consumers tracked by BCG across nine countries, including France, Germany, the UK and the US.
Boston Consulting Group, Consumers trust AI to buy better. Brands need to move quickly, 2026More than 60% of consumers in BCG's multi-country survey (over 9,000 respondents per wave) expressed high trust in the results generative AI tools gave them when shopping.
Boston Consulting Group, Consumers trust AI to buy better. Brands need to move quickly, 202633% of 4,000 US consumers surveyed by Deloitte for its 2025 holiday retail survey said they planned to use generative AI tools for holiday shopping, against 59% who planned to use social media.
Deloitte Insights, 2025 holiday retail survey: generative AI adoption in holiday shopping, 2025Traffic to US retail websites from generative AI tools rose by 693.4% year on year during the November to December 2025 holiday season, according to Adobe Analytics data covering more than 1 trillion visits.
Adobe, Holiday shopping season drove a record $257.8 billion online (press release, Adobe Analytics data), 202644% of users who had tried AI-powered search told McKinsey it had become their primary and preferred source for internet searching (2025, all categories).
McKinsey & Company, The agentic commerce opportunity: How AI agents are ushering in a new era for consumers and merchants, 2025Use cases in practice
Zalando reported that more than 90% of its onsite marketing content (such as promotional material, teasers and product campaigns) was generated by AI as of December 2025.
Zalando SE, Report of the Management Board, Annual General Meeting 2026, 2026More than 2 million customers had used the Zalando Assistant, a generative AI fashion assistant available in all 25 Zalando markets, by March 2025, five months after its full roll-out.
Zalando SE, More personal and smarter: the Zalando Assistant with enhanced capabilities (press release), 2025During a pilot of a more personalised version of its assistant, Zalando reported a 40% increase in high-value interactions such as likes or add-to-bag actions.
Zalando SE, More personal and smarter: the Zalando Assistant with enhanced capabilities (press release), 2025Zalando reported shipping more than 20% more software code changes in the second half of 2025 than in the second half of 2024, presenting the figure as evidence that AI accelerates its productivity and speed.
Zalando SE, Report of the Management Board, Annual General Meeting 2026, 202685% of 358 ecommerce professionals at large US retailers (over $500 million revenue) surveyed in 2025 said they were using AI to detect or prevent return fraud.
National Retail Federation and Happy Returns, 2025 Retail Returns Landscape (press release), 2025Returns, sustainability and resources
US retailers expected 15.8% of their annual sales to be returned in 2025, worth $849.9 billion, and 19.3% of online sales (survey estimate across all retail categories).
National Retail Federation and Happy Returns, 2025 Retail Returns Landscape (press release), 2025In a dataset of 496,365 items ordered from a high-end online fashion retailer by 75,707 customers in 113 countries between 2015 and 2022, the overall return rate was about 37.5%.
Patel, Karlsson and Oghazi, Fits like a glove? Knowledge and use of size finders and high-end fashion retail returns, Journal of Innovation & Knowledge, 2025In the same peer-reviewed study, customers who used an online size finder were 0.65% more likely to return an item, a very small increase, while each quarterly increase in size-finder use was associated with a 7.51% rise in customer lifetime value in the following quarter.
Patel, Karlsson and Oghazi, Fits like a glove? Knowledge and use of size finders and high-end fashion retail returns, Journal of Innovation & Knowledge, 2025Around 5 million tonnes of clothing, roughly 12 kg per person, are discarded in the EU every year, according to the European Commission.
European Commission, EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles (policy page), 2026Only around 1% of the material in clothing is recycled into new clothing, according to the European Commission's textiles strategy.
European Commission, EU Strategy for Sustainable and Circular Textiles (policy page), 2026The IEA projected in April 2025 that electricity demand from data centres worldwide will more than double by 2030 to around 945 TWh, with AI the most important driver; this is a forecast relevant to the energy footprint of AI tools.
International Energy Agency, AI is set to drive surging electricity demand from data centres (press release on Energy and AI), 2025Workforce and productivity
The World Economic Forum's Future of Jobs Report 2025, based on more than 1,000 employers in 22 industries, projected that 170 million jobs will be created and 92 million displaced worldwide by 2030 (forecast).
World Economic Forum, Future of Jobs Report 2025 (press release), 202541% of employers surveyed for the Future of Jobs Report 2025 said they planned to reduce their workforce as AI automates certain tasks, while 77% planned to upskill their workforce.
World Economic Forum, Future of Jobs Report 2025 (press release), 202539% of respondents to McKinsey's State of AI 2026 survey (all industries) expected AI-related declines in their organisation's total employment in the coming year.
McKinsey & Company, The state of AI in 2026: On the road to ROI, 2026McKinsey estimated in 2023 that current technologies, including generative AI, could in theory automate work activities that absorb 60% to 70% of employees' time; this is a technical potential, not a forecast of job losses.
McKinsey & Company, The economic potential of generative AI: The next productivity frontier, 2023BCG estimated in 2026 that in AI-mature retail organisations, productivity could rise by more than 30% while total employee costs fall by 10%; this is an estimate, not a measured result.
Boston Consulting Group, Retail rewired: How AI is reshaping the retail business model, 202655.03% of large EU enterprises (250 or more employees) used AI in 2025, against 17% of small enterprises, and lack of relevant expertise was the most cited barrier (70.89%) among firms that had considered AI but not adopted it.
Eurostat, Use of artificial intelligence in enterprises (Statistics Explained), data extracted December 2025Method
Figures were selected only from primary or near-primary sources: consultancy and research reports, official statistics, regulators, peer-reviewed research and company disclosures. Each figure was checked on the source page itself in October 2026; figures found only in secondary round-ups were excluded. Surveys differ in population, geography, sample size, question wording and timing, and several cover retail or the whole economy rather than fashion alone, so figures are not comparable across sources and should not be combined into trends. Forecasts and modelled estimates are labelled as such and reflect the assumptions of their authors.