AI and the Future of Work - Fashion Industry

This individual assignment for the AI and the Future of Work course at Hult International Business School evaluates how artificial intelligence is reshaping the fashion industry, both in current practice and over the coming years. The analysis examines how AI is influencing employment levels and role composition across the fashion value chain—from design and trend forecasting to sourcing, merchandising, marketing, retail, and supply chain operations—highlighting where tasks are being automated, augmented, or newly created. Building on this, the paper explores how the nature of fashion work is shifting toward data-enabled creativity, faster decision cycles, and increased cross-functional collaboration between technical and creative teams. It then identifies the emerging skill requirements needed to remain competitive in an AI-enabled industry, including data literacy, prompt and tool fluency, ethical judgment, and human-centered capabilities such as storytelling, aesthetic direction, and cultural insight. Finally, the assignment develops a three-scenario forecast that maps potential adoption pathways (optimistic, moderate, and risk-driven) and outlines the key trends likely to shape fashion’s workforce—such as hyper-personalization, virtual product development, predictive demand planning, and responsible AI governance. Overall, the work positions AI not simply as a disruptor of jobs, but as a catalyst for redefining roles, capabilities, and competitive advantage in fashion.