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When using AI, most of us worry about the technology hallucinatingtelling us lies, misinformation, or nonsense that it presents as fact. But legendary fashion designer Norma Kamali has no such fear. Over the past two years, Kamali has been using AI extensively in her work. Kamali, who recently celebrated her 80th birthday, partnered with computer scientists to create an AI platform based on her five decades of work as a designer, and she also took an AI course at MIT to better understand how the technology works. “These scientists asked if they could download my brain,” she says. “They would isolate my intellectual property, brand history, and archive. At first I said, “No way.” But I’ve come to see the possibilities for my brand.” Kamali has used her AI platform to design pieces for her own collection, including variations of her famous Sleeping Bag Coat. But she says that as she interacts with the AI, some of her favorite moments are when it hallucinates, generating bizarre images that explode with a strange kind of creativity. “The image is always a surprise,” she says. “If I say something like, I’d like to put a fishtail on this swimsuit worn with a sleeping bag coat, the AI goes crazy. It’s beyond gorgeous in the most art tech, fashion way.” As AI companies continue to refine the technology with the aim of eliminating mistakes, Kamali believes its only a matter of time before hallucinations no longer occur. But she says she’ll be sad when that time comes. In many ways, her open-minded approach to AI is a microcosm of her openness as a designer, which has paved the way to all kinds of unconventional, creative collaborations. “AI, for me, has been a really joyous experience,” she says. “We’re in this little moment in history that will eventually disappear. But then we’ll find other things to excite us.” [Photo: Eugene Gologursky/Getty Images for Fast Company] Kamali launched her label in 1976 and became an overnight sensation when Farrah Fawcett wore one of her red bathing suits in a poster that same year. It’s ironic to Kamali that she first made her name with a swimsuit because she really didn’t like the version that Fawcett had purchased. “I would use my shop as a lab, making six of a new style to test and see what sold,” she recalls. “I had no idea she had come in and bought that one. I really hated it: I didn’t like the fit or anything about it, and quickly took it out of the shop.” Kamali is proudest of the moments when she’s been willing to innovate and explore ideas that to others may have seemed unconventional. She’s often proven to be far ahead of her time. In the early 1970s, for example, she created the Sleeping Bag Coat, inspired by a camping trip. The coat became iconic (its on display at MoMA), at a time when most coats were made of wool. It ended up being a precursor to the puffer coats that are now ubiquitous around the world in cold weather. Another cutting edge-design was her line of Sweats sportswear, which she launched in the 1980s. It was designed to be worn outside of the gym, three decades before the “athleisure” trend would take over modern life. Kamali hasn’t just been willing to take risks with design, she’s also been willing to try new things at retail. In 2003, Target began collaborating with designers to create more affordable versions of their clothing, starting with Isaac Mizrahi and Michael Graves. Walmart, on the other hand, was not known for being particularly design-oriented. But in the early 2000s, Kamali met with a Walmart buyer who proposed a partnership. Much like with AI, Kamali took a minute to think about it before she embraced it. “I was like, Oh my God, I’ve never been to Walmart,” she recalls thinking. Then she realized there was a need for smart, fashion-forward clothes at an affordable price point. She grew up going to public schools in New York City, and she knew there were many parents who didnt attend parent-teacher meetings because they didn’t have the right clothes. There were also teachers who couldnt afford to buy professional-looking clothes on their salaries. “I felt that teachers should dignify the position, and look amazing in front of the kids in their class,” she says. So Kamali created a wardrobe that was everything an adult would need to walk into a school and look polished: a trench coat, a white collared shirt, black trousers, ballet slippers, and pumps. She also worked hard to find manufacturers who could create these products at the best possible quality given the price point, which was less than $20 per item. The popularity of the collection became clear when Kamali noticed that people were reselling these products on eBay for upwards of $200 apiece. Ultimately, Kamali believes the success of her business has been all about being open to going in unconventional directions, and not following the status quo within the industry. This is another moment when she can redefine her work, and Kamali doesn’t want to miss the chance to engage in new creative outlets. There’s a lot of fear, but there’s so much more opportunity,” she says. “I’m having a wonderful time playing around with [AI] and asking it to play with my ideas.”
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E-Commerce
Your company has rolled out AI like its a new office uniform. Everyones using it. And unlike most uniforms, people are using it even when they are told not to. As a result, your inbox clears itself, your reports write themselves, and meetings collapse into neat little summaries at the click of a button. You may be even be fantasizing about sending your digital clone to those pointless meetings, and perhaps your colleagues have done so already (which may explain their perfect attendance record). And yet, theres a difference between outsourcing pointless tasks to AI, and making work better (which also requires you to figure out what to do with the time you save). Plainly put, if you are running faster in the wrong direction you will only get to the wrong place faster. This may explain the recent resurgence of an old paradox, Robert Solows law, which in the late 1980s noted that You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics.” What are you really using AI for? Right now, most companies treat AI like an espresso shot for knowledge workers. A jolt to help fire off emails, draft decks, or summarize meetings. It feels like magic, but magic tricks dont grow the bottom line. Saving a few minutes here and there is like sweeping the kitchen when the roof is leaking. Part of AIs seduction is its smooth, conversational interface. Ask, and you shall receive. But business value doesnt appear by asking polite questions: It usually requires hard structural change. And so far, AIs biggest impact has been making existing processes leaner, often by replacing the interns and juniors who used to do that work. Think of it as corporate liposuction: It trims the fat, but it doesnt build new muscle. To be sure, as the great Peter Drucker noted, there is nothing so useless as to make more efficiently what should not be done at all, which may explain why, in a resurgence of Solows law, AI is everywhere except in the productivity stats. Cutting costs makes humans twitch Behavioral economists call it loss aversion: We hate losing more than we enjoy winning. Announce that AI will eliminate jobs, and people panic, even when the math adds up. History, though, shows a different pattern: As old tasks disappear, new ones emerge. Just as the rise of spreadsheets created a need for finance analysts, AI will create demand for data governance, ethics, and human oversight. The long arc of technology bends toward job growth, but the bumps along the way are brutal. The real promise of AI isnt subtraction, its addition Netflix recently used generative AI to add an impossible scene to a show, something too costly and complex with traditional methods. Thats the story leaders should chase: holding baseline costs steady and producing something better. AI at its best is not a fancier calculator; its a time machine that lets you create what yesterday was impossible. So what makes a great AI project? Right now, too many organizations are wandering around with a hammer, mistaking everything for a nail. A CEOs blanket mandate, everyone must use AI, is like ordering an army to march without telling them where the battle is. Great AI projects share three ingredients: Volume: Attack the most common, repetitive activities that drive your business. Shave seconds off the thing done a million times, and youve found your goldmine. Variability: Raise the floor. Get average performers closer to your best. Its like tightening a symphony so fewer notes are off-key. Human Glue: Fix the broken joints between systems. AI shines when it eliminates the soul-crushing cut-and-paste that holds organizations hostage. But heres the kicker: speeding up one cog in a broken machine doesnt make the whole machine run better. Unless you reimagine end-to-end processes (often across teams and departments) youre just moving bottlenecks around, and should really not expect great results. Data: the ceiling that caps your ambitions AI is like a gourmet chef: It can cook only with the ingredients you give it. If your data is stale, inconsistent, or scattered across warring silos, dont expect a Michelin-starred meal. Most firms have exquisite data in a few areas (finance, operations), but HR and talent data? Thats like a pantry filled with mystery cans. You know who got promoted, but not why. You feel when a team clicks, but cant quantify it in machine-readable terms. Without proprietary, well-structured data, your competitive advantage is just reheating the same meal as everyone else. Culture: the silent killer Even the sharpest AI project can crash into an organizations immune system. A culture obsessed with cost-cutting breeds fear. Misaligned incentives choke collaboration. A weak communication culture makes change management impossible. Remember, 80% of change projects fail, and AI doesnt get a free pass (it is still a change management task, and very much led by humans). Layoffs may feel like the obvious shortcut, but decades of research show that slashing headcount first is like burning the furniture to heat the house. It buys a little time, but undermines long-term survival. Leaders need to show courage, humility, and clarity. Employees, meanwhile, can choose to be architects of change instead of passive victimsreimagining work, learning new skills, and using AI as a career lever rather than a threat. Doin Better Right now, too many firms are playing the corporate equivalent of toddler soccer: everyone chasing the ball, no strategy, lots of shouting. Winning with AI depends on three foundations: The right technology, deployed against the right problems The right data, accurate and unique The right culture, aligned and prepared for change Everything else is noise. The lesson is clear: AI is not the main course, it is the fire. It can burn the house down, or it can cook a feast no one thought possible. What separates the two outcomes is not the cleverness of the algorithms, but the imagination of the people deploying them. If leaders see AI only as a knife for trimming costs, they will eventually cut into the bone of their own organizations. But if they see it as a telescope (an instrument that lets us glimpse horizons we couldnt see before) then AI becomes a catalyst for growth, innovation, and human potential. The future wont be won by those who use AI most quickly, but by those who use it most wisely: to create new value, to elevate human talent, and to turn technological possibility into strategic reality.
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E-Commerce
When people think innovation, they tend to think startup. Theres no question that the most transformative ideas in business often emerge from young ventures: new entrepreneurs building new companies powered by new ideas. At Fast Company, we peer around a lot of corners, trying to identify the most compelling stories emerging from this undiscovered terrain. But I have a little secret to share. While I love the shock of the new as much as the next business journalist, theres a subset of innovation coverage that I tend to find more surprising and inspiringgreat stories about legacy businesses that are innovating from within. This issue is full of fine examples of this, starting with our cover story on Starbucks and its CEO, Brian Niccol, by global design editor Mark Wilson. Shortly after taking the Starbucks job a year ago, Niccol launched a back-to-basics strategy. He culled the bloated menu, launched an ad campaign that refocused consumers attention on the quality of the coffee itself, jettisoned those printed drink-order stickers on cups for cute handwritten Sharpie notes, and worked to improve the physical experience of sitting in a Starbucks and enjoying your drink. All of these moves acknowledged that in its pursuit of operational efficiency (including a gold-standard app for pickup orders), the coffee giant had lost some magic. Niccol has stabilized Starbucks, but the strategy has yet to deliver the results shareholders expect and demand. He insists that its early still, and that his plan for year twoincluding a full redesign of 1,000 storeswill move the numbers in a meaningful way. Wilson explains and analyzes this plan in detail. Later in the issue, senior staff writer Elizabeth Segran talks to Latriece Watkins, the chief merchant at Walmart and a two-decade veteran of the company. Watkinss delicate task: attracting affluent shoppers to the value chain without alienating its budget-conscious consumer base. And I interviewed ESPN chairman Jimmy Pitaro about the sports behemoths new eponymous streaming service, which finally debuted in late August after years of planning and half-measures such as ESPN+. Among the topics we covered was gambling, an increasingly integrated feature of the ESPN experience. Is that innovative? Sure. Is it good for sports (and society)? Almost certainly not. Theres probably another reason I like to readand publishjournalism about innovation at legacy companies: Fast Company is itself a legacy brand. We turn 30 this fall. In November 1995, Bill Taylor and Alan Webber, whod formerly worked at the Harvard Business Review, launched this sui generis business magazine. It immediately spawned a flurry of imitators, such as Business 2.0, Red Herring, and The Industry Standard. Only Fast Company remains. I like to think that its because we take what we cover so seriouslyand learn from it. Happy birthday to us! And thank you, as always, for being here.
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E-Commerce
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