From 5 to 7 July 2018, Alibaba rolled out a pilot FashionAI concept store on the Hong Kong Polytechnic University (PolyU) campus pairing GUESS' retail knowledge and latest collections with advanced Alibaba AI and other technology.

It was built around Alibaba's e-commerce platform Taobao. Users check in to the store with their mobile Taobao QR code and all the items displayed in-store came with corresponding Taobao product listings, so that users could add the items they would like to purchase directly to their Taobao cart. Within the store, each item came with an RFID tag. When a customer picked up a product, the smart mirror closest to the user registered the tag and displayed an image of the item as well as the product details on the screen. The smart mirror could also provide mix and match suggestions for items in the store and styling suggestions based on previous purchases made by the user. Taobao mobile virtual kiosks displayed items in sizes and colors that weren't available in stores, and check-out was done by scanning the mobile app.

For Guess, Inc., the FashionAI store is part of the company's ongoing partnership with Alibaba to expand the brand's presence in Asia. And Alibaba's partnership with Guess has allowed the retailer to "train and refine" its FashionAI system, according to Zhuang Zhuoran, vice-president of Alibaba. "[We have married] technology with fashion in a way that's never been done before," Zhuang said.

watch video of Alibaba's FashionAI concept