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Alibaba partnered with fashion brand Guess to open its first FashionAI concept store in Hong Kong last week. Part of Alibaba’s ‘New Retail’ initiative to digitize traditional in-store experiences, every item in store is fitted with tags that allow smart mirrors and smart fitting rooms in the store to interact with customers, based on how they interact with the clothing. Customers check into the store with their Taobao IDs on their phones, which are also used to track interactions with items of clothing. The customer then checks out of the store by scanning the mobile app.

Is this the future of retail? We’ll leave you to consider whether magic mirrors recommending related products is a giant leap forward, but one thing’s certain: Alibaba intuitively understand that ‘online’ and ‘offline’ are meaningless concepts, but that shoppers expect their in-store experiences to be as seamless and personalized as their digital experiences.

More curiously, Alibaba’s FashionAI – like Amazon’s Echo Look – is evidence that the two biggest retail giants in the world both believe that customers will be comfortable turning to algorithms for fashion advice. And while you might not be in the business of asking your customers to choose between two outfits, you should absolutely should be asking yourself, “which parts of our customer experience will best remain being delivered by humans, and where might machines offer a better service?”

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