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Talking AR Virtual Try-On With ZERO10
197 Plays6 months ago
Emma talks to Maxim Raykhrud, Chief Product Officer at ZERO10 about the maturity curve for augmented reality virtual try-on. They discuss the high bars that virtual try-on must meet in believability and accuracy, privacy and data protection, and compliance - as well as the role of AI in future unlocks.
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Transcript
Intro: Fabric Simulation and Human Tracking
00:00:02
Speaker
You could have the perfect fabric simulation, but if you don't really track moving people very well, if you don't have the right way to scale the items to different body shapes, it really won't help.
Meet the Host: Emma and Past Topics
00:00:19
Speaker
Hello, everybody. Emma here, your host of the Interline podcast. The last couple of shows have covered sustainability, both in practice and from a technology point of view.
Guest Introduction: Maxim Rekrad and AR Try-Ons
00:00:30
Speaker
But today, we're targeting a different topic. For this episode, I talked to Maxim Rekrad, Chief Product Officer at Zero10, which offers real-time augmented reality try-on experiences designed to empower brands to engage their audiences. According to Zero10's own research, storefronts that incorporate AR try-on experiences can see up to nine times greater consumer engagement than they might have done with traditional video advertising and up to three times higher store traffic.
Virtual Try-On: Market Readiness and Privacy
00:00:59
Speaker
This makes Virtual Tryon not just a potential way to reduce returns, but also a broader play into acquiring and captivating consumers. But for all that potential, Virtual Tryon is still a contested space. So on my conversation with Maxim, we cover the wider fashion market's readiness for AR, and what consumers actually want from the technology.
00:01:22
Speaker
We talk about the challenges virtual trial faces in not just believability and accuracy, but privacy, data protection and compliance. And we even get into how Zero10 is thinking about its AI developments and what that could mean for the broader industry. Over now to my conversation with Maxim of Zero10.
00:01:46
Speaker
Maxim, it's so exciting to have you on the show today. Thank you very much for being here. We really appreciate your time.
Maxim's Journey and the Role of a CPO
00:01:53
Speaker
I am your host, Emma, and let's get into these questions with Maxim from Zero10. So if you could begin by introducing yourself, talking a little bit about the career path that led you into fashion technology, as well as a little bit about what your day looks like as the CPO at Zero10.
00:02:13
Speaker
Absolutely. It's lovely to be here and to have an opportunity to tell your listeners more about the world of augmented reality in the fashion industry and fashion technology. So, as mentioned earlier, my name is Max Imreichrud, and I am the CPA at Zeroten. I have been a product manager and been in digital tech.
00:02:35
Speaker
for over 10 years, one way or another. I used to work for companies like CityMapper, but also for some fashion tech companies that say the inside prediction, and also for some very science heavy startups. And I have been with Zero10 since March 2022. So two years now. It's been a wonderful journey. I think overall, I've always been interested in fashion one way or another, and I've always been interested in tech.
00:03:05
Speaker
This sort of has led to maybe in several startups and companies that did fashion tech. And I think my experience at Zeroton has been so far the ultimate experience in this because it actually allowed me.
Understanding AR and Virtual Try-On Applications
00:03:20
Speaker
to take part in shaping the future of fashion technology and to be on the very frontier of the next big things in tech. So day-to-day offers zero-ten CPU, really. That's quite a lot of things to do. Of course, we have a fantastic product team. We have a fantastic tech team.
00:03:42
Speaker
So I don't have to do everything myself and we have people focused on different aspects of our business, people working on say the management tools, people working on the PTC experiences, people working on the AI side of things that we already have in place and so on. And my job is to
00:04:02
Speaker
basically formulate the strategy make sure that we are doing the right thing for our clients and for their clients to help teams achieve their goals to set these goals you know the basic stuff and of course there's always some hands-on work because we are very much about providing the perfect client experience so whenever our clients want something out of the box something new something unusual we
00:04:28
Speaker
to help them do as much as could be possibly done. Absolutely. And I wonder, this kind of job probably didn't exist 15 years ago. So it's really quite awesome that you get to do it today. So good for you. And before we go any further, I think I want to pin something down. How do you define virtual try-on and augmented reality AR?
00:04:53
Speaker
What should these things accomplish in your opinion for which channels in order to be a success? Okay. Well, that one is, of course, I mean, like any question of terminologies, one of the hardest, but we'll just go with our definition and the stuff that we use.
00:05:11
Speaker
First of all, virtual try-on could encompass a lot of different technologies. It could be done using augmented reality, it could be done with some other tech, it has in some ways been done even as early as late 90s, one way or another. Augmented reality is
00:05:31
Speaker
a way to introduce bits that don't really exist into the world that already exists. So one very simple example of that would be something that everyone has seen on, say, Instagram or Snapchat, all of the filters, all of these face masks, a lot of things like this. That's AR. But also, of course, all of the normal web AR or just AR stuff like
00:05:57
Speaker
being able to place furniture in
Challenges in AR Garment Simulation
00:05:59
Speaker
your room and so on. So that's a augmented reality when you introduce something that's not real into the reality. And it's not a separate virtual experience, but it just becomes part of the world that you see through some sort of lens. We think, of course, the virtual try-on could accomplish a lot of different things in many different channels. So we have, of course, apps like Snapchat or TikTok.
00:06:26
Speaker
And that is mostly about providing worldwide reach. It's about providing engagement opportunities. Less so about the perfect trial experiences, of course, because the technology is not quite there. We have, say, the retail channel where augmented reality trial could be providing utility, could be providing engagement, but could also be competing with positional advertising. And that's also great. So, I mean, there's obviously
00:06:56
Speaker
e-commerce and in e-commerce virtual try-on is able to significantly decrease the number of returns that are based on the style preferences and many other things like this and of course drive the engagement and drive the conversion rates. So I think there are so many opportunities and this is really hard to talk about all of them in one sentence.
00:07:22
Speaker
Of course, of course I understand that, but you've done a good job anyway in doing that. And just touching on that answer that you've just given, where are we currently on the journey to market readiness and for more widespread consumer adoption of what you've described? What do shoppers want AR Virtual try on to deliver and how close are we or how close are you to being able to offer it?
00:07:48
Speaker
Okay, so this one is very interesting. I think that we definitely see that, I mean, obviously are a lot of projects happening. So, zero 10, we're doing augmented reality mirrors. We're doing some web trial experiences. There are players like say Warner, who are also doing a lot of like web trial experiences, a lot of shoe trial and experiences out there. And yet I think.
00:08:18
Speaker
that we are at the earliest possible stages of consumer adoption. So despite the number of projects, it hasn't even started yet. And I think that that's really incredible because that shows us that there is so much opportunity in this market. Shoppers wanted to be convenient. They wanted to be seamless. Companies wanted to be high quality.
00:08:43
Speaker
wanted to reflect the quality of their items, wanted to reflect their physical properties. And of course, this has been a challenge for some originally, but I think we basically are at the earliest possible stage yet. Yeah, no, that sounds right. I think there's still a long way to go, but have to start somewhere.
Long-Term Engagement with AR
00:09:06
Speaker
So
00:09:06
Speaker
and already what you've done, it seems mature for what it is. But this leads me to my next question, which is around why you think fashion hasn't quite reached the same trajectory as AR shopping in other categories. So for example, like consumer tech and furniture, we've been able to visualize a sofa or a smart speaker in our living room.
00:09:36
Speaker
a long time. So is this around the fact that garments are made from soft materials? And there's a technical challenge there in terms of representing something that's accurate and visually compelling. Yeah, what are your thoughts on that? Well, I would say that there are lots of factors to play here. Of course, as you mentioned,
00:10:01
Speaker
rigid objects that are just little boxes, one way or another, or at least they're objects that don't really move, are easier to showcase in augmented reality. But fashion has more challenges than just having to simulate the fabric, than just having to have the right flow of materials, which I think has been a big challenge, by the way.
00:10:28
Speaker
There are companies that have managed to come very close to having the best quality in the market right now. And I have to say that our development team has worked very hard on this. But I think that's not all.
00:10:43
Speaker
you could have the perfect fabric simulation. But if you don't really, you know, track moving people very well, if you don't have the right way to scale the items to different body shapes, it really won't help. So I think there was a lot of opportunity here still for perfection. And also in fashion, I think
00:11:10
Speaker
the clients are very, very, very particular about the quality. And therefore, we're only just now, only last year, we have started seeing say, handbag dry on. We were one of the first companies that did this with say, Coach, and then later last year, Oraton in Australia. I think even these categories have been quite challenging because they are still on the human body. So, you know, they still move the actual,
00:11:40
Speaker
bag has to move along with your board, it has to move fluidly. So all of these have been very, very hard to make right. But I think
AI's Role in Virtual Try-On Adoption
00:11:49
Speaker
we are almost there. And depending on the client, we might actually even be there already. Yeah, that makes sense. And I wanted to touch on what you said about the customer and the difficulty when it comes to not dealing with them. But you know, there are a lot of factors when it comes to
00:12:09
Speaker
dealing with people and of course fashion is about, you know, apparel for people. So when it comes to virtual try-on and importing a 3D model of say a sofa into your living room, it really doesn't require the same amount of privacy, data protection and compliance that you need to do a body map to virtual try-on for apparel.
00:12:34
Speaker
How big of a challenge is that whole element around user privacy? And in the scenario where Virtual Tryon is rolled out for a brand or retail as customers, who is the responsible party when it comes to data governance? This one is really interesting because I think that on one hand, I agree. On the other hand, it doesn't really matter that much. So I'll explain. Please. So basically,
00:13:02
Speaker
Yes, it definitely is a lot more privacy sensitive matter and there is a lot more opportunity for foul play here. But when done right, augmented reality try on of clothes doesn't really require any personal data and the companies that do this right
00:13:23
Speaker
and the companies that don't try to be malicious actors, generally can do this without saving almost any personal data. And I could explain how. So, body tracking is done on device, simulation is done on device, so in case with our technology at least, we know for sure that it could work without sending any personal data outside of the actual device.
00:13:50
Speaker
which I think is great. But of course, you have to, if you are looking for a vendor to provide these experiences, you have to look for companies that actually do this right.
00:14:02
Speaker
But thankfully, obviously, we have GDPR, which is the EU legal framework to ensure that the private data stays private. We have certifications like ISO 27001 to ensure that data security. When we work with clients, we work with big corporate clients, they ask us for data flow diagrams, which we are always very happy to provide.
00:14:27
Speaker
And in our particular case, the only two scenarios where personal data is necessary for it to function, but then still it is fully protected by all legislation compliance procedures, is when we do a photo-based try on the web and when we
00:14:48
Speaker
use the photo capture online. And that's only because, you know, you have to serve the image back on the web. And of course, that couldn't really be done without having it on the web accessible one way or another. So yeah, but basically, it is a complicated matter. But if you ensure that your vendors, and I'm pretty sure all of the other vendors in the market also have the same sorts of compliance in place, then it's perfectly safe is perfectly fine. And
00:15:18
Speaker
Then it just falls down to the vendor to tell your customers that this is fully private, fully secure. There's no need to worry. Here's the privacy policy. Here's how you could delete your data, even if you choose to send any data. And of course,
00:15:36
Speaker
You know, given all I just said, the responsible party when it comes to data governance is the vendor, is the supplier. It's never the customer and it's never the brand or retailer because obviously no one wants to get any extra responsibility when they install a new service or, you know, install a new experience in retail. So yeah, there you go. Yeah, that's reassuring. It really is reassuring.
00:16:02
Speaker
And I want to move away from that kind of serious talk to something about more along the lines of how AR is fun. I want to mention that, you know, aside from all of those concerns, I'm sure that everyone listening has at some stage has had a fun experience with AR, whether it was to do with fashion or not. It could have been, you know, Pokemon Go. I think that was my first kind of knowledge of AR and
00:16:30
Speaker
on a widespread level at least. And we know that this kind of fun can translate into engagement, but that's quite
Creativity in Fashion: AR and AI's Influence
00:16:39
Speaker
a short-term thing. How do you think that brands and retailers should be thinking about AR and virtual try-on, delivering a deeper long-term return on investment? It doesn't seem that easy to take these kind of activations and really measure what they achieve beyond bringing digital native shoppers into brick and mortar stores.
00:16:59
Speaker
Well, first, I'll have to disagree with you on it being short-term only. We all know that, say, there are digital screens in almost, well, not almost all, but quite a few retailers nowadays choose to have them in store, ranging from premium to luxury, maybe even from mass market to luxury, really. It's all ends of the spectrum. And we do see that digital screens work.
00:17:28
Speaker
surprisingly well despite, you know, probably not being particularly exciting.
00:17:33
Speaker
And yet they still provide engagement many years after they have been first introduced. Obviously, don't react to it being a TV and going, wow, but it attracts attention still. So I disagree with the fact that engagement is a short term thing. But of course, there are many longer term opportunities. And I think that's what makes this technology great, because it does give you this first boost. And then you could bring it to a lot more
00:18:01
Speaker
We have successfully worked with our clients to do a lot more in-depth measurements than one might think about. So it's definitely a lot more than just bringing digital native shoppers to offline. I think there is a lot of work at hand when it affects the brand perception, when it helps with attracting the right audiences, but targeting better, but
00:18:29
Speaker
course, apart from all of these traditional marketing use cases, which I think are very, very, very good and very competent, there is the utility opportunity. And I think utility opportunity is absolutely incredible here because AM mirrors could deliver a lot of things that otherwise couldn't really be done without having the stock. And we all
Zero10's Future: Beyond Fashion
00:18:54
Speaker
know that it's very, I mean, it obviously takes time and effort to store the extra SKUs in store. And given that some brands want to be doing smaller, more experiential retail spaces, they definitely will have even less space to store the SKUs, but they still want to sell the full collections. Air Mirrors could be useful here. Air Mirrors could provide a way to buy something that doesn't, you know, that's not available in this particular store.
00:19:23
Speaker
We could essentially build, you know, endless aisle systems with AMIRRS. And we have been doing tests around that and it has been very cool so far. There's also one of our ultimate goals, which of course is to create a store that is fully driven by an AMIRR. Because for many product categories, augmented reality trial is already good enough and already high quality enough to drive an actual purchase at the right price points, of course.
00:19:50
Speaker
We have been doing some experiments with doing just that, so using air mirror to let people try on things and then order them has been really cool so far. So yeah, I think there is a lot of utility-based scenarios in the future, scenarios based around
00:20:09
Speaker
extending the available stock, doing e-commerce style fulfillment from offline spaces, a lot of AI-based opportunities in the future too, like product recommendations and so on. So I think engagement is a great nice boost first, then it goes to affect the actual marketing metrics, but then it could and does actually affect the sales, which I think is incredible. Oh, that's all fair enough. Thanks for explaining.
00:20:38
Speaker
It makes a lot of sense what you described about the short term as well as the long term. And you touched on what I want to ask you about next, which is AI. The Interline has a deep dive report on the AI do this spring. So it's very much on our mind. And we're talking to a lot of people in the fashion technology space around AI. And I wanted to ask you whether it makes sense, which you actually have said
Conclusion: Stay Connected with Zero10 and Interline
00:21:01
Speaker
already, whether it makes sense to integrate AI into virtual try on and how this works.
00:21:06
Speaker
So when we spoke to you before the show, you mentioned to us that you have a team working on what you call the holy grail of virtual try-on and gen AI. Tell me, what are you aiming for there? How are you incorporating AI into your products? And how far do you think it could move the needle on a wider adoption of AI try-on? So, okay. AI is one of my favorite topics at the time. And I think that applies to quite a few other people out there.
00:21:35
Speaker
So there is a lot of opportunity for AI in fashion retail. We all know this, I think. And for us, what we see as the people who specialize in visualizing and providing those experiences is that, well, of course, we do have a team of people working on generative AI try-on. We have published on our blog on Zerotend.ar.
00:22:02
Speaker
We have published some findings and some mid-project reports on the state of AI try-on, which I think is absolutely incredible. And I think we will eventually have a way to try on items onto the customers without having E3D assets, which is of course
00:22:26
Speaker
very useful for quite a few categories of our clients. I mean, we're talking marketplaces. We're talking companies that do short runs. We're talking about companies that have not yet embraced digital product creation pipelines. And that's incredible. That's great. But AI could also be used to provide more customized experiences. It could be providing product recommendations. It could be. And that's also something that may happen internally.
00:22:55
Speaker
working essentially as a virtual sales assistant. So yeah, there are a lot of really cool opportunities here. Yeah, I'm sure this is a topic where you could speak on it forever. So I appreciate your succinct answer because it is one of the most exciting topics at the moment in fashion and in the wider kind of world. So that's awesome to hear. You mentioned a little bit about DPC and we've also spoken slightly about utility.
00:23:24
Speaker
We at the Interline are quite passionate about DPC and we have a report that we've done for the past two years covering 3D and DPC. And looking back at what we've covered over the past years, there has been a common theme when it comes to the desire and drive to extend the utility of the value of digital assets to new endpoints like virtual stores.
00:23:48
Speaker
and other consumer facing use cases. Do you see Virtual Tryon as a new endpoint for that DPC ecosystem? And what does it look like to get these digital assets from 3D design tools into AR experiences like these?
00:24:05
Speaker
Well, it's not that I see that as a new endpoint. It's already easing an extra endpoint in the DPC ecosystem. So we have been very, very lucky to work with companies that have embraced this approach one way or another. And in many of our projects, we have already been reusing the assets that have been created before us. So it wasn't just a scan model or something. It came from the client who already had the asset.
00:24:34
Speaker
which I think is incredible. I'm a big proponent of digital first product creation. I think there is a great opportunity in there. Of course, it's obviously not as easy to do as we all would love it to be, but there are companies that are doing digital first product creation right now already. And it's a pleasure to work with companies like this.
00:25:00
Speaker
And I think that AirMirror, I mean, not just AirMirror, let's be honest, augmented reality try on one way or another could be used not just at the retail, e-commerce stages of this process, because we have already worked at earlier stages. We have done wholesale projects where buyers could come into the showrooms and try on items that have not been produced yet, but they do have the 3D models for them, of course, and they do have the blueprints.
00:25:29
Speaker
Our team helped make them suitable for AR, but still, it's an early stage of a product and you could try it on. It's incredible. And if you think of it that way,
00:25:41
Speaker
It could be applied at even earlier stages of a pipeline that embraces digital product creation and read augmented reality try and you could actually be trying on items as soon as you make your first drafts in clothes, browser, style 3D, whatever it is that you're using.
00:25:59
Speaker
which I think is an incredible opportunity because that will cut down on the pre-production costs, on all of the wait times to see, to wait until the item is produced. And of course it will be a lot more immersive and a lot more cool, I have to say this, just standard avatar try-on.
00:26:23
Speaker
For sure. For sure. That makes a lot of sense. As we move to the last segment of this wonderful interview, we're now speaking a lot about how Zero10 partners with brands and retailers to offer B2B solutions, like you've just been talking about, for AI trial. Is there also, well, no, there is a second prong to your business, which is giving emerging designers, individual creators and other users
00:26:53
Speaker
open access to 3D and AR tools to support and empower fashion design. What do you think the impact of AR and also AI potentially will be on the next generation of creatives? Well, I would say that we already are seeing the impact and we already are seeing the next generation of creatives. The digital native creatives, the creatives that are not really bound by any limitations of
00:27:22
Speaker
you know, the traditional production methods, the necessity to make something real, because they could think completely out of the box. And unlike some of the previous generations where they could create this fantastical garment, but they couldn't really wear it, you know, it would be somewhere on an avatar, it would be somewhere in a digital world. Now they could actually wear these things. And
00:27:47
Speaker
I think there has been a lot of creative thinking about creating items that would say complement the physical garments, the creating items that would work for particular occasions, creating items that would look particularly well on socials. We have been seeing a lot of these incredibly cool new things. And I think we will be seeing a lot more of that later on. So obviously, AI has been playing a big role in what the people are doing. I think AI has helped them
00:28:17
Speaker
work a lot better with, say, texturing, or even brainstorming new ideas. If you have ever tried to play with image creation tools like DALI 3 or Mid-Journey to create new garments, it could really help you create something incredibly cool. And I think the combination of AI for ideation, for brainstorming, and AR for actually wearing that is going to make it even cooler.
00:28:47
Speaker
Absolutely. That combination I think is going to be really what moves the industry forward in the way that you're working towards. And I do have to agree with you. I think for designers, it hopefully is not taking away their creativity, but opening even more doors and allowing imaginations to blossom. So it's nice to hear you say that. Thank you so much for your time today, Maxim. It's been really a delight speaking to you.
00:29:17
Speaker
I want to know what is next for you at zero 10. You know, is there anything in particular that you would like to see the company do or do you have knowledge about some longer term plans for zero 10 that you are able to share? Well, there are so many things to do that it's hard for me to give you a quick answer. So I'm going to ultra concise, but of course, first,
00:29:43
Speaker
we are exploring other use cases outside of the world of fashion, which is incredible because despite our technology being particularly well-tailored for fashion, we have been able to create some incredibly immersive projects already. So say last December, we worked with Warner Brothers on projects connected with Aquaman 2 release, which was an incredible opportunity. And we also are currently
00:30:14
Speaker
part of a project. I mean, actually, we have done the project, but it's a collaboration between Macy's and Disney that's running in the Macy's flagship in New York City, which is slightly outside of the world of fashion because it allows children to try on Disney princess dresses. And that's sort of like slightly outside of it. Also, in many ways, still the world of fashion, of course. And we're seeing a lot of opportunity there as well, like in those directions.
00:30:45
Speaker
No, you go ahead. It sounds like this expansion is in a different kind of direction, but always go with the touchpoint of of AR and fashion. I mean, Macy's and Disney and the world of movies and all of that. It's still part of the cultural kind of zeitgeist. You know, fashion has never been more intertwined with
00:31:12
Speaker
culture. So yeah, please carry on. So it might actually not even be outside of fashion. It's just changing the boundaries of what fashion means. But anyway, we also are looking at new markets like Asia Pacific and Middle East because we are seeing incredible demand in there. And that's going to be, you know, obviously changing the way our user experience works, changing the way the interaction works. Very exciting things about
00:31:44
Speaker
Obviously I expand in the product categories that we do. So right now it's clothes, it's handbags, it's essentially full body costumes, but we do want to be doing a bit more than just that. And there are some very in demand categories that we have been getting a lot of questions about that we hopefully will be releasing quite soon. Couldn't say what that is, but we'll see. And of course,
00:32:10
Speaker
Last but definitely not least, we have a lot of work on the actual user experience of the technology that we do, because it's nice to have TrionTech, but TrionTech is really nothing without a compelling user journey. And I think we've been very lucky with the one we have right now, but we are going to be working on more engaging, more interactive experiences in there, adding new control schemes, adding virtual assistants, as I mentioned earlier,
00:32:40
Speaker
and much more. So I think there is a lot of opportunity there too. We will stay tuned for sure and keep watching out for all of the things that CO10 is doing because there is a lot in the pipeline it seems. So, Maxim, thank you so much. It was wonderful to speak to you and all the best with all that's to come. Thank you. Thank you. It's been a great opportunity. I hope this info reaches the people that want to know all of this stuff.
00:33:09
Speaker
and they don't get bored to death. And yeah, absolutely. Looking forward to all of the new things from the Interline too. I hope you enjoyed my conversation with Maxim. Be sure to give Zero Ten a follow across their social media platforms to keep up with the latest brand and retail partnerships that they're busy with. Or maybe you'll spot an AR magic mirror next time you're shopping. You won't want to miss who's next on our guest roster for the podcast. So make sure you subscribe to the Interline podcast wherever you listen to podcasts.
00:33:39
Speaker
and give us a follow on LinkedIn and Instagram. Last but not least, be sure to subscribe to our weekly newsletter, where we give you our analysis on the biggest news stories of the week in the world of fashion technology. We cover a broad spectrum of fashion tech topics with insights into sustainability, the latest legislation to affect the fashion industry, developments in 3D and digital product creation, and so much more. You can access that newsletter on our website by clicking the newsletter icon in the top right corner of the screen.
00:34:08
Speaker
and I will be delivered straight to your inbox every Friday. Thanks for listening, everyone. See you soon.