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Giovanni Angelo Becciu was responsible for managing the Holy See’s funds

A cardinal who oversaw the management of Vatican funds from 2011 to 2018 has been convicted of multiple counts of embezzlement and fraud in a landmark corruption case.

Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu, once one of the most powerful figures in the Holy See, was sentenced by the Vatican’s criminal court to five years and six months in jail on Saturday in what the Italian media had dubbed the Catholic Church’s “trial of the century”.

The charges resulted from an investigation by Vatican police into the alleged misuse of church funds in an ill-fated London property investment.

The Holy See had purchased a minority stake in an office building in Knightsbridge from a fund that was founded by London-based Italian financier Raffaele Mincione, and planned to convert the building into a luxury apartment complex. However, the local council had not granted planning permission for the conversion when the Vatican bought into the project.

After spending more than €350mn to acquire the property between 2014 and 2018, the Holy See realised losses of £100mn when it sold the building to Bain Capital for £186mn last year.

During the trial — which began in July 2021 and held 86 hearings with 69 witnesses — Becciu’s lawyers argued that the cardinal was “totally unaware of the potential problems” with the real estate investment or that it was “possibly illegal”.

“Nobody ever communicated the presence of problems and risks in the investment,” his defence team wrote in a submission to the court last month.

However Mincione argued in court that the Vatican was well aware of the risks and had lost money because of its own irrational decisions.

Mincione, who was also charged in the case, was found guilty of embezzlement and money-laundering and sentenced to five years and six months in jail, though his lawyers have already said they intend to appeal.

Others involved in the complex series of real estate dealings were also convicted, including Gianluigi Torzi, whom the Vatican had later asked to help it acquire full control of the building.

Torzi was convicted of extortion, fraud and money-laundering and sentenced to six years in jail.

Enrico Crasso, a former Credit Suisse banker who had set up an independent consulting company to provide financial advice to the Holy See, was convicted of embezzlement, money-laundering and corruption and sentenced to seven years in prison.

Two members of the Holy See’s financial oversight committee were convicted of dereliction of duty and given small fines.

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In total, seven people were sentenced to jail in the case and ordered to pay about €200mn in damages to the Holy See.

Becciu was also convicted of a further charge of embezzlement for sending €125,000 to a charitable organisation led by his brother which was ostensibly set up to help marginalised groups including addicts, former convicts and the unemployed.

Becciu was also convicted of fraud in connection with €575,000 given to a self-styled security expert, who was meant to use the money to free a nun kidnapped in Mali but instead spent it on holidays and a luxury shopping spree. The security consultant, Cecilia Marogna, was also convicted of fraud and sentenced to three years and nine months in prison.

A lawyer for Becciu, the first cardinal ever to stand trial in the Vatican’s criminal court, said he would appeal against the verdict.

“We will keep crying out loud that the cardinal is innocent,” said Maria Concetta Marzo, a lawyer for the cardinal.

However, the Holy See’s official Vatican News said after the verdict that the trial’s outcome — in which some of the accused were acquitted, or acquitted of some charges — showed that the proceedings had been conducted with “full respect for the rights of the defendants”.

“The magistrates . . . reasoned with complete independence on the basis of documental proof and witnesses heard, not on preconceived theories,” wrote Andrea Tornielli, editor of Vatican News.

The high-profile convictions come amid signs that Pope Francis may be growing uncomfortable with the fallout of his campaign to bring greater professionalism and accountability to the management of church finances.

In a recent meeting with Vatican auditors, he called for “merciful discretion” as they try to root out bad actors and corruption.

“The lure of corruption is so dangerous that we must be extremely vigilant,” the pontiff told the auditors. But he said that scandals “serve more to fill the pages of the newspapers than to correct behaviour”.

Pope Francis, who had vowed to clean up the church’s scandal-tainted finances and bring greater accountability, did not comment on the cardinal’s conviction in his public audience on Sunday, which was also his 87th birthday.

Fed’s dovish message is being interpreted by the bond market as a full-speed ahead signal

This week’s rally in global bond markets has shattered investors’ months-long assumption that interest rates in the US and elsewhere will remain higher for longer.

The benchmark 10-year US Treasury yield, seen as a proxy for borrowing costs around the world, fell below 4 per cent for the first time since August. The policy-sensitive two-year yield, which closely tracks rate expectations, slipped to its lowest point since May.

Other government bond markets have also undergone a dramatic about-turn in recent days, with Germany’s 10-year Bund yield sliding to its lowest level in nine months as its price shot higher.

The sharp moves came after the Federal Reserve gave its clearest indication yet that it would not raise borrowing costs again, and signalled that it expected three quarter-point cuts in 2024. Fed chair Jay Powell noted that the benchmark rate was “likely at or near its peak for this tightening cycle”.

“Higher for longer is dead,” said Kristina Hooper, chief global markets strategist at Invesco. “Powell wrote the epitaph [this week].”

As recently as early November, markets had been bracing for an extended period of elevated borrowing costs as central banks continued their battle to tame inflation.

In recent weeks, signs of a cooling economy and softer price growth data had helped to ease those concerns — lifting bond and stock markets. But the Fed’s closely watched “dot plot” projections on Wednesday were seen by many as the most official sign yet that “higher for longer” was over.

By Friday, markets were reflecting investors’ expectations of six US interest rate cuts in 2024 — beginning as soon as March. Those predictions would take borrowing costs in the world’s biggest economy from a current range of 5.25 to 5.5 per cent down to roughly 3.9 per cent.

“A dovish pivot from the Fed is a full-speed ahead signal for the bond market,” said Bob Michele, chief investment officer and head of the global fixed income, currency and commodities group at JPMorgan Asset Management.

While New York Fed president John Williams said on Friday that talk of rate cuts as soon as March was “premature”, his note of caution was not enough to halt the rally.

The upbeat narrative also persisted in Europe and the UK — where inflation has been far more stubborn than in the US — even as European Central Bank president Christine Lagarde and Bank of England governor Andrew Bailey pushed back against the prospect of imminent rate cuts.

Buoyant investor sentiment also lifted stock markets this week, with Wall Street’s S&P 500 closing out its seventh straight week of gains and edging closer to a fresh record high.

Some strategists noted that US inflation was still far from the Fed’s long-term target of 2 per cent — meaning that rates are unlikely to come down rapidly. The US headline consumer price index reading for November came in at 3.1 per cent — down from October’s figure of 3.2 per cent, and in line with consensus forecasts.

But for Michael Kushma, chief investment officer of broad markets fixed income at Morgan Stanley, “the Fed has switched its focus from inflation to growth”.

If the Fed is satisfied with waiting for price growth to return to 2 per cent, he added, “there’s no reason to have too weak an economy in 2024. The Fed has decided that inflation is behaving, so off to the races we go”.

The sharp drop in government bond yields this week has also translated into much lower debt funding costs for corporate borrowers. The average bond yield for junk-rated US companies has fallen to less than 8 per cent, according to an Ice BofA index, around levels last seen in February — with Thursday marking its biggest daily drop in 13 months.

The spread or premium paid by risky borrowers over the US government also narrowed by a sizeable 0.33 percentage points on Thursday to 3.47 percentage points.

Concerns have intensified this year that some of the lowest-rated companies on both sides of the Atlantic will struggle to refinance their debt in an environment of much higher funding costs, potentially sparking an uptick in defaults. Junk-rated US companies alone are staring down a $1.87tn maturity wall over the next five years, according to Moody’s.

But “even though we haven’t seen one rate cut yet . . . There has been a significant easing in financial conditions that is giving companies breathing room,” said Invesco’s Hooper.

The prospect of cuts has more pronounced implications for floating-rate loan issuers than for fixed-coupon bond issuers, said Andrzej Skiba, head of Bluebay US fixed income at RBC Gam.

“Unlike in US high-yield bonds where it’s a marginal positive, in the leveraged loan space and private credit [space], it could make the difference between a company getting into trouble and not.”

Still, he noted that a further slowing of the US economy could start to weigh on corporate profits.

High-end speaker and television maker targets younger shoppers

High-end Danish speaker and television maker Bang & Olufsen is confident it can defy a slowdown in the luxury goods sector partly because “the rich will only become richer”. 

The brand, which counts musicians Alicia Keys and Lenny Kravitz among its customers, is seeking to become a major luxury player despite lacklustre sales among premium goods groups. A three-year boom in luxury demand has come to an end in recent months as customers cut spending on expensive items.

Chief executive Kristian Teär said the fact that the retailer, whose Beolab 90 speakers cost £110,000, had no meaningful competition in the premium space was an advantage that “will make us more resilient in downturns”, although he recognised he had to increase awareness of the brand. 

“If you go to jewellery, you have a few brands, if you go to fashion, you have a few brands, if you go to cars, you have a few brands,” he said during an interview at the new Bang & Olufsen store in London this week. “In audio luxury, there is nobody else.”

He is on a drive to recruit Generation Z and millennial shoppers with a penchant for design and technology who increasingly stream music as well as wealthy individuals who “don’t want to have something ugly” in their homes and “have enough funds”. Bang & Olufsen sells its products in 400 locations, including its own stores and concessions in other retailers.

“The rich will only become richer, and . . . we know they want to also express themselves, and they don’t want to have what everybody else has,” he said.  

“The reason why we aren’t bigger than we are is because we’ve tried to be everywhere for everybody all the time, and we were struggling. Now the direction is set, the focus is clear, we know what we’re doing, and that’s also why we show good growth in London because we try to serve the customers who we are targeting.” 

The company was founded in 1925 and it developed one of the first mass-produced radios that could be plugged into the wall, without the need for a battery.

It had a bumpy ride during the pandemic ​​when sales collapsed as the world shut down and supply chains were derailed, but recovered as people splashed the cash on gadgets. However, it recorded revenue of DKr2.75bn ($400mn) for the year to May, a decline of 7 per cent compared with the previous year.

The Comcast-owned group has secured rights to broadcast 1,200 football matches a year

Sky will aim to capitalise on its biggest investment in sport in over 30 years with plans to show as many as 1,200 football matches a year, and more funding for innovative in-game coverage.

The UK-headquartered group is hoping that sports will be a key differentiator in the fight — not just against other broadcasters but also against the large US tech giants — to be the primary entertainment subscription for British homes.

Days after securing the rights to show the majority of Premier League football matches for more than £5bn, Dana Strong, the chief executive of Comcast-owned Sky, said that the deal capped a multiyear bet by Sky on cornering the market for exclusive sports coverage.

“It is a big deal for Sky,” she said in an interview with the Financial Times. “We’ve got the lion’s share of every major sport that UK fans crave until the end of the decade. That gives us an enormous runway to think about how we invest in innovation.”

Sky first acquired the rights to broadcast Premier League matches in 1992.

The new £5bn deal will increase the number of games shown every season from the top tier of English football to 215; an increase of 70 per cent on the former arrangement struck in 2021. A separate £935mn agreement with the English Football League will mean that Sky can show more than 1,000 games a season across its divisions. 

Now, the media and telecoms group is putting in place long-term investment plans to make sense of the vast outlay on rights to show the Premier League games for the next four years. 

Sky is looking to show multiple games at the same time via its streaming platform, while also broadcasting a show of match highlights.

“We could play it out on streaming, we could play it out in an app, you play it out on linear channels. So there’s lots of different ways that we can bring it live for customers,” she said.

Other technology and initiatives will bring viewers closer to the action, according to Strong. There are continuing talks about securing greater access to players and managers around the games.

Part of the Sky strategy is to encourage greater viewing among women and younger people. 

Sky is aiming to “make sure that sport is something that’s embraced by every member of the family, not just the dad”, according to Strong. “It’s really important for sport as a business to make sure that we’re bringing the under-35s because if you’re not then you’re damaging the legacy.”

Sky Sports, the group’s main UK rights holder, reported a 40 per cent increase in viewers for its coverage of the opening weekend of football compared with 2022-2023. More than 8mn fans tuned into the five games on Sky Sports, including 2.5mn under-35s.

Claire Enders, a media analyst, said that the Premier League deal will help to guarantee Sky’s future by removing a risk to its TV subscription base, even as the cost of living crisis is hitting the mobile and broadband market.

The group has also held talks with clubs about getting greater access to managers and players during the match, although Strong said that the dressing room at half time was still the “sacred ground for managers”. 

“We’re getting closer to the managers, closer to the players, representing their voices, even if it’s not at halftime. We’re working hard to build their trust.”

Success in the Premier League auction will mean new customers but also a greater chance to increase subscription prices, according to analysts at Enders. Strong declined to comment on whether there would be higher costs for consumers. 

The move to show more games over its streaming services reflects a broader strategy taking the broadcaster away from providing TV through a traditional Sky satellite dish — where it literally made its name — to being a digital media group.

“It’s a really important pivot for our business . . . the next frontier. And we’ve been pretty bold about leaving the satellite behind,” Strong said.

More than three-quarters of customers sign up to internet-delivered services rather than traditional satellite dish. 

Underpinning this strategy has been the launch of Sky Glass, an internet enabled TV set that comes with a subscription to its channels.

Comcast has had to write down the value of Sky in its books since acquiring the business in 2018 for £32bn as the result of higher interest rates and reduced estimated future cash flows. Some media analysts also view the price paid as excessive for a business facing competition from both US tech groups as well as domestic telecoms and broadcast rivals. 

Strong said the writedown “was based on a number of factors, including interest rates, foreign exchange, macro economic climate. None of those factors were in a very healthy place. We feel that moment is in the rear-view mirror. The US parent feels optimistic about the Sky business, and we’re in good shape.”

More importantly, she said, Sky’s investment in technology also benefits Comcast, which has used its innovations to help create a global entertainment platform. Sky also now sells its platform technology to other TV providers in regions such as Africa, creating a further revenue stream.

Enders said that under Strong’s three-year tenure, the broadcaster had been able to bring its US parent “on board with Sky’s objectives” — including signing the cheque for more than £5bn for the rights.

Away from sports, Sky also faces a crucial renegotiation with Warner Brothers Discovery over extending its deal to show HBO programming beyond 2025. Since the deal was struck, WBD has launched its own streaming platform, Max, which could lead to a rethink of its UK strategy with Sky. 

Strong said that there was “plenty of time” to arrive at a new deal but admitted that there were already talks about the future. “As you would expect In any good relationship, you’re always revisiting. How can we improve the relationship? What might the next generation look like?”

Sky will also invest more than £500mn a year in original content for its TV channels, in part using new studios in Elstree for production.

The studios opened officially in September although have already been used on the production of the new Wicked movie, which was held up by the strikes in Hollywood. More blockbusters are set to follow, including the Paddington franchise movies.

Strong said: “We believe there’ll be about 3 billion [pounds’] worth of movie productions over a five-year period. And which should bring about 2,000 jobs to the UK”.

Just a couple of weeks until the end of the year and companies are still raising big rounds. The week was especially good for biotech, which led the way with two big raises. A space and defense startup also hit it big.

1. Tome Biosciences, $213M, biotech: A big biotech raise hit high on the list this week. Watertown, Massachusetts-based Tome Biosciences emerged from stealth with a $213 million combination Series A and B funding from investors that include the likes of Andreessen Horowitz Bio + Health and Arch Venture Partners. The startup’s “molecular surgery” technology, based on research licensed from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, is designed to allow the insertion of varying sizes of genetic material in the genome without damaging DNA. The company plans to use the tech to develop gene therapies for monogenic liver diseases and cell therapies for autoimmune diseases.

2. Bicara Therapeutics, $165M, biotech: If Bicara Therapeutics looks familiar, it’s because this isn’t its first time on this list. Boston-based Bicara Therapeutics raised a $108 million Series B co-led by Red Tree Venture Capital and RA Capital Management in March. This week, it is back with a $165 million Series C co-led by Braidwell and TPG — which is investing through its TPG Life Sciences Innovations, and The Rise Fund. The company is developing biologics to fight tumors and is already in clinical trials for a head and neck cancer treatment. Founded in 2020, the company has raised $313 million, per Crunchbase.

3. True Anomaly, $100M, space: Centennial, Colorado-based True Anomaly, which develops hardware and software systems to help space security and readiness, raised $100 million in a round led by Riot Ventures this week. The company’s valuation was not disclosed, but Bloomberg reported it was not $1 billion. The startup helps the government and commercial customers keep an eye on threats to assets they have in space, such as satellites. The company’s Jackal autonomous orbital vehicles, which can detect objects in space, are slated to launch aboard SpaceX‘s Transporter-10 mission next year. Founded in 2022, the company has raised $158 million to date.

4. Totus Medicines, $66M, biotech: As one can tell, biotech really went big this week. Our third such startup already on the list, Emeryville, California-based Totus Medicines, closed a $66 million Series B financing led by DCVC Bio. The firm specializes in small molecule drug discovery and development using covalent libraries and AI tools. Founded in 2020, the company has raised $106 million, per Crunchbase.

5. Essential AI, $57M, artificial intelligence: Essential AI’s round this week is a good example of what many AI startups did all this year — raise big money from corporates. The San Francisco-based startup announced it had $56.5 million in new funding led by March Capital, but other investors also were a who’s who of AI big tech — Advanced Micro Devices, Google, Nvidia and others. The interest seems warranted, as the company is attempting to use AI to automate monotonous corporate tasks — which could be a big market. The company is calling its technology the “Enterprise Brain.” Founded this year, the company already has raised more than $100 million, per Crunchbase data.

6. Deep Apple Therapeutics, $52M, biotech: New York-based biotech firm Deep Apple Therapeutics raised a $52 million Series A from life sciences venture capital firm Apple Tree Partners, which created and incubated the startup. Deep Apple is developing novel small molecule therapeutics through screening of AI-generated virtual libraries. This is the company’s first round of financing, per Crunchbase.

7.(tied) Calyxo, $50M, medical device: Pleasanton, California-based medical device startup Calyxo closed a $50 million Series D led by Avidity Partners. Founded in 2016, the company has raised more than $97 million, per Crunchbase.

7.(tied) Parse Biosciences, $50M, biotech: Seattle-based Parse Biosciences, a developer of scalable single-cell sequencing solutions, raised a $50 million Series C as a mix of equity and debt. No lead investor was announced for the equity portion. Horizon Technology Finance provided the debt facility. Founded in 2018, the company has raised $100 million, per Crunchbase.

7.(tied) Twin Health, $50M, biotech: Mountain View, California-based Twin Health locked up a $50 million round led by Temasek. The company uses a body digital twin to reverse or prevent chronic metabolic diseases. Founded in 2018, the company has raised nearly $250 million, per Crunchbase.

10. StayNtouch, $48M, software: New York-based Stayntouch, a developer of cloud hotel property management software, secured a $48 million investment led by Sixth Street Growth. Founded in 2012, the company has raised more than $60 million, per Crunchbase.

The largest raise of the week was a really big one from across the Pacific.

Apple has agreed to pay out $25 million to settle a class action lawsuit over its Family Sharing feature, which lets users and up to five of their family members share access to apps, music, movies, TV shows and books that they purchase. The lawsuit, which was first filed in 2019, alleged that “Apple misrepresented the ability to use its Family Sharing feature to share subscriptions to apps.”

The news was first reported by MacRumors.

The lawsuit says that Apple denies that it made any misleading misrepresentations and “denies all allegations of wrongdoing.” The settlement agreement notes that “Apple has concluded that continuing to defend this Action would be burdensome and expensive. Apple enters into this Agreement without in any way acknowledging any fault, liability, or wrongdoing of any kind.”

The tech giant did not respond to TechCrunch’s request for comment.

Court documents from the lawsuit allege that Apple advertised Family Sharing as an option on apps that did not support Family Sharing.

“The vast majority of subscription-based Apps, which is a growing percentage of Apple Apps, cannot be shared with designated family members,” the court document reads. “They are available only to the individual user who downloads the App and sets up a subscription. All or virtually all of these Apps, however, included the statement that they support Family Sharing on their landing pages through January 30, 2019.”

The lawsuit alleges that Apple was aware that the subscription-based apps did not support Family Sharing, but still placed an ad for Family Sharing on them. The court document goes on to note that “millions of consumers have downloaded subscription-based Apps believing that they are available for Family Sharing, only to learn after payment has been made that they are not so available.”

U.S. residents who were enrolled in a Family Sharing group with at least one other person between June 21, 2015 and January 30, 2019 and purchased a subscription to an app from the App Store during that time may be eligible for a payment. Eligible class members will be receiving an email this week.

Each class member that files a claim is eligible to receive $30, but this may vary depending on how many people file claims. However, the payment will not exceed $50 for each class member, and $10 million from the settlement will go toward attorney fees.

Eligible class members have until March 1, 2024 to file a claim. A final approval hearing is scheduled for April 2, 2024.

Disruptive technologies in the workplace generally fall into three categories — those that enhance existing skills while creating new ones; those that replace skills while reducing the need for others; and those that fall somewhere in between. So where does one of 2023′s buzziest technologies — generative artificial intelligence — fit? For creative teams in the fashion industry, the year ahead could help them find the answer.

Gen AI — algorithms pre-trained on large volumes of data such as text, images and code, often fine-tuned with other corporate data, that can create new, complex content — had a breakout year in 2023 as powerful new tools hit the market. By January, two months after its launch, ChatGPT reached an estimated 100 million users, a record pace of growth at the time. Multiple platforms and tools have since entered the market, and a dizzying array of start-ups are seeking to leverage these, while strong open-source alternatives are challenging proprietary models.

While the technology’s use is nascent in many industries, it’s accelerating. If its trajectory continues, it could be one of the most transformative technologies for the fashion industry in a long while. Early experiments have offered a promising start, but the transformative power of gen AI will become more evident as use cases move beyond one-off projects and become embedded within fashion’s value chain.

The overall financial impact of gen AI on the industry is potentially significant. According to recent McKinsey analysis, as much as one-fourth of the value is expected to be driven by use cases at the design and product development stage of the value chain.

It’s no surprise then that gen AI is on industry executives’ radars. The BoF-McKinsey State of Fashion 2024 Survey of global fashion executives found 73 percent of respondents said gen AI will be an important priority for their businesses in 2024. Yet while many are experimenting with the technology, just 28 percent said their businesses had tried it for design and product, indicating fashion companies are not yet capturing its value in the creative process.

Caution is understandable. The technology could impact jobs and workflows. The fashion industry has also seen a fair share of technological enthusiasm that has swiftly sputtered — notably, the metaverse. Based on rate of progress and investment, however, gen AI is likely to offer a different story. The technology has more practical applications than the metaverse, making it more attractive to businesses and investors. Equity funding for gen AI-focused start-ups skyrocketed in 2023, reaching $14.1 billion in the first half of the year alone, compared with $3.5 billion in 2021 and $2.5 billion in 2022. A significant share of the surge was due to Microsoft’s January announcement of its $10 billion, multiyear deal with OpenAI, the research laboratory behind ChatGPT. In the second half of the year, Amazon announced a $4 billion investment in the artificial intelligence start-up Anthropic, pushing 2023′s investments in gen AI even higher.

Part of gen AI’s potential lies in the array of tasks to which it can be applied, and fashion businesses are already beginning to adopt it in several concrete ways. However, the focus so far has been on one-off use cases with clear advantages when it comes to cost, efficiency or customer experience, rather than those with potential for wider industry disruption.

Online shopping assistance is one area where it is making its mark. Online retailer Zalando announced the launch of a beta ChatGPT-based natural language-powered shopping assistant in spring 2023 that allows a visitor to its site to ask questions and get answers as well as customised product recommendations. Kering, Mercari and Shopify have similarly introduced AI chatbots.

Brands using the technology to write product descriptions for their sites include Snipes, a sneaker and streetwear retailer, and Adore Me, the lingerie company recently acquired by Victoria’s Secret. Shopify, meanwhile, has introduced a gen-AI writing assistant for merchants.

Other brands have begun exploring gen AI tools in one-off creative and marketing projects. Ganni used the technology at its Spring/Summer 2024 runway show for an installation that let guests ask questions and receive answers reflecting Ganni’s point of view. Luxury label Casablanca created a campaign for its Spring/Summer 2023 collection by partnering with an AI artist and using image generator Midjourney. Casablanca creative director Charaf Tajer said human talent and creativity were required to produce the richly hued, stylised campaign set against a desert landscape in Mexico. But he also acknowledged efficiency gains as a result of bypassing all the planning and costs of in-person photo shoots, among other benefits.

Specific gen AI deployments like Zalando’s and Casablanca’s have piqued the interest of both the wider industry and consumers. But the technology has not yet been systematically scaled beyond pilot projects. Ultimately, the greatest value may lie in using gen AI in an end-to-end way that enables and enhances creativity.

Use cases may differ across segments of the industry. In fast fashion, gen AI can accelerate the design process, injecting more agility from trend detection to product development and by leveraging analytics data to rapidly produce large numbers of new designs. Meanwhile in luxury, gen AI could become an additional medium in the designer’s repertoire, allowing them to experiment with rapid iterations, compile mood boards that draw from diverse sources and curate the output. It can equip less technically skilled designers with the ability to visualise their concepts. The unexpected results produced by AI tools can even provide inspiration.

Fashion brands Collina Strada and Heliot Emil have leaned into this space to craft their Spring/Summer 2024 collections. Both fed images of previous looks into a gen-AI tool to produce new designs that could be refined with text prompts. Online retailer Revolve also used the technology for a series of eye-catching, colourful billboards and dropped a limited capsule collection with garments from the campaign, with further experiments under way. Meanwhile, Spanish brand Desigual launched an on-demand collection that was designed using AI tools.

Companies developing gen AI software for fashion say the technology can reduce manual tasks that take days to mere hours or even seconds. AiDA (short for AI-based Interactive Design Assistant) reportedly can produce a dozen fashion templates within 10 seconds. The system uploads sketches, materials and colour palettes to a virtual mood board with the help of a tagging tool for accelerated product searches. AiDA then creates templates that designers can finesse and augment. Cala, a fashion supply chain interface that includes gen AI in its design tools, can help designers produce more than 100 sketches in a single day, according to co-founder Andrew Wyatt.

In fashion, human skill and creativity often hold the key to brand differentiation. Rather than diminishing them, gen AI used properly can free designers from manual tasks to focus on creative work. Human designers will remain key, while gen AI will enable their roles to be orientated around curation. This potential must be communicated clearly to creatives to ensure the technology is adopted without undermining the role of the designer.

As the number of gen AI adopters in fashion expands and the technology evolves, it will require more than a superficial understanding of its role in enhancing and unlocking creativity. It holds exciting potential for companies to create unique gen AI models that enable them to infuse their brand DNA across design processes, rather than relying on the generic output of image generators. For creatives, success will hinge on the support and infrastructure of their ecosystems that enable them to move from manual creators to true creative curators. When implemented effectively, the technology can benefit and amplify the creative process, thus augmenting human capability, while retaining the artistic skills and knowledge of designers. Ultimately, say experts, human-centred innovation will likely be the most important use of AI.