Ralph Lauren just unveiled “Ask Ralph,” a new AI chatbot built in partnership with Microsoft that aims to give mobile app users a virtual stylist in their pocket. After a year of daily collaboration with Microsoft’s AI engineers—complete with brainstorming sessions and impressive data dumps—the brand rolled out the assistant to suggest outfits, answer style questions, and help users navigate the product catalog. Users can type in anything from “What should I wear to a concert?” to “Show me women’s Polo Bear sweaters,” and the bot responds with curated picks from Ralph Lauren’s style playbook.
While other brands have dipped into AI-powered assistants, Ralph Lauren’s move is notable for how deeply it integrated its style DNA into the bot. The team didn’t just slap a chatbot on top of a product database; they trained it using branded videos, product specs, and internal style guides. Built on Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI platform—with help from Infosys on stitching the data together—the chatbot reflects Ralph Lauren’s visual and brand standards. It also comes with guardrails to keep conversations relevant, knowing full well that AI’s unpredictability can sometimes lead to brand headaches.
What’s next? Microsoft and Ralph Lauren are exploring options like letting users upload wardrobe photos to receive mix-and-match guidance. While “Ask Ralph” focuses on e-commerce for now, both teams see it as a scalable blueprint for AI that strengthens, not dilutes, brand identity. As AI-powered retail assistants go, this one doesn’t just talk the talk—it coordinates the whole outfit.
Read more at AdAge.