Try before you buy: How AI is changing the way we shop

What if you took your whole shopping experience into a virtual world? AI is changing a lot of things that we're doing these days, including trying on clothes, maybe even getting some fashion advice and so much more. How does it all work? There's a tool out there that can really set you up for a lot of cool things fashion-wise. I want to bring in fashion tech entrepreneur, John Ema, who is the co-founder and CEO of a company known as Spree AI. It's a company that's bringing AI into the world of fashion. John, thanks for joining us. Thanks so much for having me today. Of course. So this is a pretty big tool. And I want to break it all down with the big picture of how it all works and stuff. But I want to first get to know more about you because you have made a pretty big impact. The Met Gala recently and a few other appearances. Talk to me about you and how your role is in fashion. Yeah, I got into fashion because of my mom. She was a fashionista. She just didn't know how to turn it down with fashion. It didn't matter if we were going to the grocery store or she was visiting me at school or at the gas station. She's a fashionista from head to toe. Fashion didn't really stick with me until I was in high school, where I realized that part of your identity, sorry, part of your identity as a human is based on people, how they basically perceive you. So you could be walking Walking down the street and people judge you based on how you look. That's just. The nature of how things go and I was very nerdy, you know, I had this engineering coding background, checked all the boxes from the Revenge of the Nerds movie. If you saw it, it was very nerdy. And so I wanted to improve my appearance. I wanted people to see me not just as a tech person, but someone who also loved fashion. And that's hence why how I started to merge both of those worlds together. And recently you were at the Met Gala, certainly an incredible outfit that you had there. Talk to me about this. I'm going to pull up the video from that event. Yeah, sure. I got invited to the Met Gala for the second time by Anna Wintour and the Vogue team. And it was a surreal experience. I mean, being able to walk the red carpet with, you know, very notable names in movies or music or etc. And being a part of that, I guess, very intimate guest list was quite surreal. And it was a great experience, not just for me, but also for the company. Yeah, certainly an incredible experience, and now you're working on something incredible as well. AI, artificial intelligence, changing the way we try clothes on, and maybe even simply get advice. How does this all work, and what is this? Yeah. So, you know, essentially what we're doing, as I mentioned, is merging fashion and tech together. So in its current state, imagine yourself walking into your favorite store. There's already a process that's been developed. When you walk in, there's usually a sales associate to assist you. You go on and you try on garments, you go into the fitting room, there's a mirror there, et cetera. But that same experience doesn't exist online. And so what we've effectively done is create technology to do so. So imagine you shopping at your favorite brand and our technology can actually live on their website so you can upload a picture of yourself be able to see yourself in a photorealistic way of the garments accessories you want to buy we also detect your size so you don't have to worry about that pain point of gosh do I is this am I a small in this or a medium or whatever and there's all these other features that we've basically built to really help personalize the experience where you become the model I want to talk about how this envisions you, how you can see the outfit that you try on. For someone like me, I'm curious how realistic this technology is because my weight does fluctuate and there are times where, well, you know, certain materials might not look the same as others. So how can we perfect it? Yeah, so we've actually partnered up with MIT and Carnegie Mellon, who both help us build our technology. And so quality is at the forefront. To your point, if someone is going to use this technology, it needs to feel real, right? All the intricate details that you would see on a garment, maybe the shimmers, etc. And so we've essentially perfected that down to where, you know, the naked eye cannot tell if That person was wearing that garment or not and so then that's really important for to get someone over the hump in terms of purchasing things. Now we're not saying that we totally want to move away from people shopping in store or anything like that. I think those experiences will always exist. It's more so of how do we basically just improve the experience overall for people that just shop. How do we go about as far as affordability? I know AI is a great tool. It can help us shop. But what about finding the right deals and what's within my budget? Yeah, so the way that our technology works is we're a B2B2C company, meaning that we partner directly with brands who then market our technology to their consumers. And so when you talk about finding deals, that's really up to the brand to kind of determine what the best deals are, et cetera, for their consumers. What I will say is we are in the process of developing our own B2C app. And part of that experience is what you're describing today, where there will be an ecosystem to where people can find things that have great deals and many features that will be a part of that. Let's talk about privacy, because a lot of people are curious as far as AI goes. AI is very intelligent, as we all know. How can it store this information and how are the images or even the people's personal information protected? Great question. Privacy is at the forefront of everything that we do, as well as education. I think what you've kind of seen in tech is, it's not necessarily a bad thing, is the businesses scale so quickly, and then you kind of have to work backwards to address a lot of the trending topics that people are bringing up. We came out the gate basically saying, this is how we're We're using data and privacy. So most tech companies are using. Something to basically store data in the cloud, right? And so we're taking the same approach on our side as well, but we're very transparent. How that data is being used and there are different options in terms of consumers can opt out opt in and opt out. And so when we talk about uploading a photo, that's you uploading your own personal photo. You also have the right to delete that at any time. But if you're not comfortable with that, we have what we call twins. And so twins are basically designed as someone that you can select from that looks like you, that has similar height and weight, and that can be a part of your experience. And so that alleviates a hundred percent of. Any sort of concern that maybe a consumer may have about their own personal data. That's pretty interesting. I almost wish we had enough time to put me through a virtual try-on session because it sounds so cool. Now that the holidays are coming and people are wondering how they shop for others, how does this all work? And is there an easy way to go through this just as a starter? Yeah, so how it all works is there's twofold. One is you can go on our website, SpreeAI.com, and you can learn more about the company, our culture, what we've created. And then most importantly, you can actually test out the technology and have fun with it. Second is, you know, there's a lot of different brands that are going live with our technology. And so you'll probably see some of your favorite brands that you shop at today using our technology, and you'll be able to experience it there. Certainly an incredible thing that you've built and I feel like we need you back for more things AI. I really would love to do a shopping experience with you on this. I gotta say, John, it is so good to have you join us today and we appreciate your time to walk us through this all. How can people find you and follow you and get more information on the app? Is that all on Yeah. So it's all on the website at SpreeAI.com. And then my personal handles are, I am John Ema, um, where it's more so my personal brand that obviously involves SpreeAI as well. And also John, uh, is there a, like subscription to get, to sign this for, for this app? So, yeah, so there's no subscription, all the brands, you know, we work directly with brands and so they effectively pay us directly. So for the consumers, it's a hundred percent free. Love it! You know, my favorite word. It's so good to have you join us today. We appreciate you. And yeah, you're welcome back anytime. Thanks so much for having me.