- Business Insider reporters asked ChatGPT to act as their virtual personal stylist.
- The bot made some helpful outfit suggestions but struggled as a personal shopper.
- Human stylists were split about whether it was useful, with one calling it a "StitchFix" box.
Artificial intelligence may be coming for some jobs, but personal stylists can rest easy — for now.
Users of OpenAI's ChatGPT and others from competitors like Anthropic and Google are perpetually trying to find unique use cases to leverage its expansive knowledge in every aspect of their lives, from professional development to improving their dating game.
However, for two reporters, there is still one subject they'd rather leave to humans: Fashion advice.
Two Business Insider reporters uploaded their photos to ChatGPT and asked the bot to act as their virtual stylist, suggesting color palettes and a series of outfits to appear polished even in casual settings.
One reporter asked ChatGPT to suggest outfits to take her from walking the dogs and running errands to going out and reporting in the field. The other requested outfit suggestions for a journalist living in Los Angeles that could take her from work events to dinner at a trendy restaurant.
Three human stylists then reviewed the results.
Man versus machine, fashion edition
Human stylists were split about whether the bot was useful, with one calling it akin to a "StitchFix" box. That's not to say there was anything technically wrong with the outfits ChatGPT recommended; they were just, well, a bit boring for the reporters' tastes.
"Let me start by saying I was pretty impressed by the overall results," Charline Zeroual, a sustainable wardrobe stylist, told Business Insider, adding that "the color palette seems to be right."
Zeroual said the suggestions were missing "soul." No patterns or prints, no standout accessories, and the outfit suggestions didn't take the weather or typical professional norms into account — a lawyer is expected to dress differently than a writer, for example. ChatGPT didn't seem to make the distinction.
"Your style is 80% basics and good foundation, but 20% you need some essence," Zeroual said. "You need the signature. You need something specific to you that is going to make your style personal."
Amanda Massi, a luxury personal stylist based in Los Angeles and Las Vegas, and St. Louis-based stylist Dacy Gillespie, both agreed.
"It's too generic," Massi told Business Insider. "Even when you upload a photo, like you did yourself, you're going to get pretty Pinterest-y, cookie-cutter results that aren't really speaking to your true lifestyle or your authentic message."
"I'm not worried for my job," Gillespie said.
ChatGPT was able to create custom style lookbooks and recommend color palettes based on photos we uploaded of ourselves, both of which could be useful if someone has no idea where to start when it comes to building a wardrobe or developing personal style.
However, despite our attempts to describe our style in detail, the lookbook was nowhere close to matching it. When given feedback and asked to try again, ChatGPT's lookbook did improve, but it was still way too basic to inspire any new looks.
ChatGPT as a personal shopper
We also tried using ChatGPT as a personal shopper by telling it a specific item we were looking for, and it fared decently, but not great. With one prompt, we described a specific style of brown moto boots we were looking for, and we were pleasantly surprised to see that its very first recommendation was pretty decent.
But it was also the exact same top result that we got on Google with a shorter search term than the prompt we had to give ChatGPT — and the other Google results were actually more in line with our description than the others the AI recommended.
Other recommendations made by ChatGPT sent us to broken links, or pages that contained entirely different articles of clothing than the bot was trying to offer up. In one instance, a link provided by ChatGPT that was supposed to take you to a site to purchase a pair of olive green utility trousers instead presented the page of a pink bikini.
Massi took a look at the recommendations ChatGPT gave and said she also wasn't impressed with where it was sourcing its picks, noting that it didn't source any higher-quality or independent labels that a human stylist would find for you.
While, in theory, you could communicate your preferences and refine its results repeatedly with ChatGPT, she said, getting it to really know your style could be a challenge.
"Everyone's creative language is so different, and it's something that sometimes can't be tangible. You can't really grasp it," she said. "To communicate your creative language to a computer program, I think it's very difficult to do accurately."
Massi said in her work, the first thing she does is physically visit a client's closet, so she can get a full and in-depth sense of what they already like to wear and already own. It also allows her to pick up on nonverbal cues that signal who the client is, what they're comfortable, and what they won't be comfortable in.
Though the stylists who spoke to Business Insider do not think AI is there quite yet, they agreed it's a promising start and could be helpful for someone just beginning to think seriously about their personal style.
Massi said she is excited about the future possibilities. One interesting use case could be maintaining a digital closet where all the items of your wardrobe are stored. Then, generative AI can be used to put together new outfits with items you already have.
But she said there's still a ways to go before we get a "Clueless"-level smart closet.
"I found it's helpful for putting something in and then just seeing it spit something back at you to get your own brain started," Gillespie said. "It's not necessarily that you're going to do what ChatGPT does, but it can act as a starting point."
