Asos has teamed up with Microsoft to reach ‘operational excellence’ with AI

The three-year agreement is set to support the fashion retailer’s drive towards “operational excellence, efficiency and data-driven decision making”.

The deal marks an extension of the pair’s partnership as Asos has already been using some of Microsoft’s AI services via Microsoft Solutions and calls itself an “early adopter” of some of the existing AI capabilities.

This includes processes via Power Automate, which creates meeting summaries, notes, actions and live translations through Teams Premium and Microsoft Copilot.

Asos signed a five-year agreement with Microsoft in 2022 to continue the use of Microsoft Azure as its cloud platform.

Asos launched customer testing for its AI Stylist earlier this year to help shoppers find new products and outfits via “easy to use” tools that reflect the Asos brand and tone of voice.

Asos technology operations director Victoria Arden said: “A core part of our business strategy is driving operational excellence within Asos: making sure we’re as fast, efficient and effective as we can be, and investing our time and resources in the projects that matter.

“Under this new agreement, we’re helping [staff] safely experiment with generative AI tools that can remove ‘busy work’ from their day, freeing them up to unlock greater creativity and insights and focus on delighting our customers.”

AI and machine learning director Papinder Dosanjh added: “AI and machine learning are already transforming how we work at Asos, whether it’s supporting better demand forecasting, helping with data-driven decision making, or powering our recommendation system – delivering billions of product recommendations to our customers per day.

“Working with Microsoft, we continue to drive innovation in this area, always aligned to our principles of safe and responsible experimentation and development.”

Microsoft UK general manager Olaf Akkerman said: “It’s fantastic to further extend our relationship with Asos after many years of collaboration. Asos has been an early adopter of AI and is using it in many innovative ways, such as delivering personalised shopping experiences through AI fashion stylists. This renewed commitment will bring huge productivity gains, freeing up time so that Asos employees can focus on new, data-driven ways to better serve customers.”