Mango, a leading name in European fashion since its founding in 1984, is furthering its digital transformation by unveiling Lisa, its own conversational generative Artificial Intelligence (AI) platform.
Developed in less than nine months, Lisa incorporates both proprietary and open-source models, all fine-tuned to meet Mango’s specific requirements. The platform comes with an interface that closely resembles ChatGPT, designed to be user-friendly for Mango’s employees and partners.
This strategic move towards embracing generative and conversational AI is part of Mango’s overarching technological revamp. The initiative aims to digitise crucial aspects of the fashion industry’s life cycle, such as customer engagement, store functionalities, stock management, and product innovation.
Jordi Álex, Mango’s Director of Technology, Data, Privacy and Security, commented, “Generative artificial intelligence is an extended intelligence, in other words, a technology that will act as a co-pilot for our employees and stakeholders and that will help us extend our capacities, because technology will either make us more human or will be of no use.”
Co-Designing with Generative AI
Prior to Lisa, Mango had already ventured into the realm of generative AI with the launch of Inspire a year ago. This image-generating platform serves as a creative tool for the company’s design and product teams, offering a plethora of visual concepts for co-creating prints, fabrics, and garments. With over a hundred trained designers and graphic artists, Mango now has more than twenty garments in the market that were co-designed with AI technology.
Generative AI is not limited to product design; it also plays a role in shaping spaces, scenarios, and images, thereby aiding the company’s photography, window dressing, architecture, and interior design departments.
A Growing Suite of AI Platforms
Mango has been at the forefront of adopting machine-learning technologies since 2018. The company now has an impressive portfolio of over fifteen machine-learning-enabled (MLE) platforms, serving diverse needs such as pricing through Midas, product recommendations via Gaudí, and multilingual customer service with Iris, which operates in over sixty countries and in more than twenty languages.
In a nod to the future and the digital realm, Mango formed a Virtual Assets team last year, coinciding with its participation in Metaverse Fashion Week. This team, consisting of around ten specialists in 3D, software, AI, and blockchain, as well as 3D artists, is focused on developing digital content that seamlessly integrates the company’s virtual and physical presence.