M&S may have been relatively late in exploiting the potential of online shopping, but its e-commerce ops are now firing on all cylinders and the retail giant is firing them up further by adding artificial intelligence into the mix.

It’s using AI to offer personal style advice to shoppers based on their style preferences and body shape.

The news came after it launched its AW24 collections that were widely praised. It seems its fashion comeback is continuing strongly with the retailer saying it had the largest share of the womenswear market for nine years this summer.

Now the company is using AI to personalise the online experience and suggest items that shoppers might want to buy. There will also be human element with online director Stephen Langford saying the retailer still needs a human in there — that is, the firm’s in-house style advisors — to sense-check what the AI is coming up with.

Shoppers can answer questions about their size, body shape and style preferences to access the AI advice and around 450,000 M&S customers had done just that so far, with a massive range of outfit options then available to them.

It comes as M&S’s Richard Price, who’s MD of Clothing & Home at the firm, said it wants to generate around half of its fashion sales online by 2028, up from a third at present.

The company has deep-dived into tech recently, including other AI applications, and said its live shopping offer now attracts around 17,000 visitors per show with revenue running into the double-digit millions. 

It also uses AI to write most of its product descriptions as it aims to get products online faster with 80% of these now being generated automatically compared to none a year ago.