Walmart’s designers and merchants are now employing a new proprietary technology called Trend-to-Product which uses AI and generative AI to analyze and synthesize global data and trends.

Trend-to-Product pulls information from the internet and tastemakers to assist the Walmart Fashion team in creating on-trend, high-quality items at speed and at the low prices its customers expect.

In the fashion industry, it has traditionally taken around six months to design and produce a collection of clothing – from ideation and concepting to the time items end up in stores and online.

This is because designers are also researchers, scouring the world from runways to social media, trend services and beyond, to learn what’s in. They then turn to concepting with mood boards, collection names, textures, colours and possible styles. Traditionally this has been a lot of work and time consuming.

Trend-to-Product takes the research and design phase from weeks to minutes and it uses generative AI to create mood boards, replete with collection names, colours, textures and ideas.

Walmart’s designers and merchants then step in. They refine the mood boards, look at sell-through data and lean on their own experience to create the final pieces that will form the collection.

“Trend-to-Product empowers our private brand design and product development associates to spend less time chasing trends and more time doing what they love most – creating and delivering high quality, on-trend items for our customers for every season and occasion,” says Jen Jackson Brown, senior vice president for apparel brand and design at Walmart. “We are excited by the early results of this new technology and the power it could have to transform the way we operate and serve our customers.”

In a final step, Trend-to-Product generates a fashion tech pack for the collection which instructs suppliers on exactly how to make each item.

The whole process takes about an hour and the items can be on shelves and online in six to eight weeks.

www.walmart.com