Fashion executives often say they want their employees to experiment with AI. They’re often met with suspicion; whether they work at corporate headquarters or in the warehouse, workers worry they’re being asked to train their own replacements.

Lately, it’s looking like the sceptics might be onto something.

Amazon, Target and UPS are among the companies that have announced layoffs — in some cases numbering in the thousands — while others have scaled back hiring. None explicitly cited AI in their announcements, though many reports noted these same companies have been touting AI investments to automate work and drive productivity. In September, Walmart chief executive Doug McMillon said the company planned to hold its global payroll steady at 2.1 million employees for the next three years, thanks in part to AI-driven efficiency gains.

Even as more fashion companies tout their AI moves publicly — from AI-generated models at H&M to Zalando’s shopping assistants — employees say internal communications haven’t kept pace. Many find themselves navigating an awkward in-between: Some quietly use AI to speed up design iterations, line sheets and presentations but keep it hidden for fear of looking lazy. Others avoid it entirely, worried about unwittingly crossing a line — or making themselves obsolete.

Mixed messages from the top aren’t helping. Leaders say they want AI put to use everywhere, and encourage workers to experiment with the technology. But they don’t always take the same comprehensive approach to training employees in how — and how not — to use it. Assurances about job security are maddeningly vague, often because even the CEO can’t say for certain that AI really will be a helper, not a replacement.

Rather than inspiring top talent to innovate, these ambiguous, constantly shifting policies can drive them out.

Experts say it’s time for fashion leaders to have the talk with their employees about AI — even if not everyone will like what they hear.

Rokt, an e-commerce tech firm, took the direct approach. Earlier this year, chief executive Bruce Buchanan told his roughly 800 employees that up to 45 percent of their jobs would be “displaced” as the company adopts AI tools to move at “five times our speed.”

Over the next few months, the company provided access to a range of AI tools that could help with everything from product design to writing an email, and hosted training sessions. Rokt also removed all regular internal meetings from employees’ calendars, instructing them to use the time to experiment with AI.

“That was the objective — to normalise [AI],” said chief development and culture officer Simon Curran. “To [say], ‘We’re all in this together.’”

But there was a second message the company wanted to convey.

“You either change with us and we support you to do it, or it’s going to become awkward,” Curran said.

There are any number of ways to deliver the message that AI is joining the team: A few months ago, Silver Jeans chief marketing officer Amy Pascal asked her 15-person team to stand along an imaginary line.

“One end is, ‘I love change and innovation — I’m excited about the future.’ The other is, ‘The future, especially with technology, scares me. AI scares me,’” she recalled.

As her team spread out along the line, Pascal placed herself firmly on the optimistic end. Still, she said, “I made room for everybody. It’s okay wherever you are — we’re going to go on this journey together.”

Her message, she said, wasn’t a promise of job security but a challenge to rise to the occasion.

“If we can do something faster, better, cheaper, I’m always going to be an advocate for us to explore that,” Pascal said. “So, I say to people, ‘Figure out what your new job is in this world.’”

Addressing the Creativity Crisis

If job security is the biggest worry surrounding AI in fashion, its impact on creativity is a close second. Creative teams — from designers and writers to merchants, photographers and models — have raised alarms about AI flattening taste, replacing talent and delivering soulless work.

Leaders don’t need to brush off that anxiety. But they also don’t need to reflexively oppose AI’s use, some experts say. The emerging norm isn’t prohibition — it’s transparency.

Nick Kramer, principal of applied solutions at leadership consultancy SSA & Company, recalled his company’s first internal conversation about ChatGPT two years ago, after employees had begun experimenting with it “in ways that were totally unacceptable, and added risk to our operations.”

Even then, banning it wasn’t on the table.

“Beyond ‘use it wisely’ and ‘here’s what you absolutely cannot do,’ the next message was: ‘Keep using it but show and tell us how you’re using it, because we are excited about the possibilities,’” he said.

“I worry most about the use I don’t know about,” he added.

Madison Hilson, co-founder of the women’s outdoor clothing brand Seniq, said she’s had the most success using AI as an “assistant” for tedious tasks and early-stage ideation — things like synthesising customer feedback, sharpening campaign ideas and improved inventory planning. That way her team can focus on the more “human, emotional” parts of the job.

“I encourage the team to use it wherever it improves efficiency or clarity, but I always emphasise that our brand voice and customer interactions come from real people,” she said, adding, “It’s obvious when a brand’s storytelling feels AI-generated.”

How to Know the Talk Is Working

At Silver, Pascal said it didn’t take long for a “star pupil” to emerge after that first exercise: a copywriter who’d seen headlines flagging her role as highly vulnerable to AI adoption and was determined to get ahead of it.

“She told me, ‘I’m going to be proactive and figure out how to use these tools,’” Pascal said. “And she updated me along the way.”

Within weeks, the employee reported she was completing her main responsibilities faster, freeing up time and identifying new creative needs the team wasn’t addressing. A few months later, Pascal said, she had effectively defined an entirely new role — and was promoted to creative services manager.

At Rokt, Curran said there haven’t been any layoffs tied directly to AI. Instead, the company has shifted how it hires, directing roughly 90 percent of recruitment towards early-career talent, mainly recent college graduates, he said.

“This group is hungry, curious [and] are AI natives,” Curran said. “So they brought in energy [and] the practical understanding of how to use these tools.”

Leaning into AI early — and being transparent about it — has strengthened Rokt’s reputation as a place where employees can grow, Curran said. That approach has had a welcome side effect: People are leaving more in-demand than when they arrived.

“We’ve had people who have learned a lot and their value in the market now is materially higher,” he said. “[In some cases] they’ve chosen to leave us and go on to get great jobs elsewhere.”