From Its First Ecommerce Site to AI Adoption, Gap Looks Back While Looking Forward

Gap launched its first e-commerce website in 1996, roughly two years before a man from Philadelphia made history by making the first ever purchase on the internet: a CD of Sting’s studio album called Ten Summoner’s Tales.

Paid for with a credit card protected with data encryption, the CD was sold on an e-commerce site called Net Market, which a 1994 New York Times article called “a new venture that is the equivalent of a shopping mall in cyberspace.”

It’s a history worth noting if only to show how much has changed since the dawn of the internet, back when the screeching of the dial-up was the sound of the future. But it was also an important time for Gap—an era when the brand embraced the tech of its time.

Now 30 years later, Gap is doing it again with this generation’s defining technology: artificial intelligence. It announced a set of AI tools that will make its product selection across its brands from Banana Republic to Old Navy easier to discover, more personalized, and more intuitive to navigate.

“Thirty years ago, we launched .com, revolutionizing the way customers interacted with our brands, and today AI is creating a new opportunity to rethink how people shop for fashion,” said Sven Gerjets, chief technology officer at Gap Inc. during the company’s San Francisco Tech Week Kickoff.It’s the next logical step for a fashion brand that has stayed up-to-date with the times. Over three decades, Gap Inc. has moved from e-commerce to mobile, social and omnichannel retail, a long road that has now led the 57-year old American apparel retail company to AI.

At Old Navy and Banana Republic, AI-powered discovery tools allow customers to describe what they are looking for in natural language and receive relevant product ideas and recommendations, Gap said in a recent statement.

Rather than requiring customers to translate what they want into keywords, categories and filters, the experiences are designed to better understand customer intent and help people move more naturally from an idea to products that fit what they had in mind.The Gap brand, meanwhile, is launching a new experience with the personal AI stylist Alta Daily, which brings AI-powered styling and discovery into a more visual and personalized environment.

The app will help customers turn their personal style and inspiration into curated looks featuring Gap products they can try on their Alta avatar.

Gap Inc. products can also be discovered through Daydream, an AI-powered fashion discovery platform where shoppers describe what they are looking for in everyday language to discover relevant products.

Gap Inc. is co-hosting Never Finished: The Next Chapter as part of San Francisco Tech Week, featuring Alta founder and CEO Jenny Wang, Daydream co-founder and CEO Julie Bornstein, and Megan Zapala, senior vice president of e-commerce at Gap in a conversation with Kevin Delaney.

The morning will also include keynote sessions with Arem Duplessis, global creative director of marketing communications at Apple, and Jonathan Mildenhall, chief marketing officer at Rocket Companies, who will discuss reinvention across technology, creativity, culture, and leadership.A lobby installation at Gap Inc.’s San Francisco headquarters will also bring 30 Years of Reinvention to life, contrasting the dial-up and desktop experience of early e-commerce with today’s fast, connected and increasingly conversational customer journey.

Gerjets said Gap Inc. is building the data, technology and partnerships needed to participate in the ecosystem responsibly and at scale. “The interface will continue to evolve, but our principle stays the same: start with the customer and use technology to create a better experience,” he said.