Fashion shoppers are increasingly dressing themselves through screens, and the numbers make that shift unmistakable. In the U.S., the average online fashion spend is over $220, the highest anywhere in the world, followed by the UAE at $175 and Latvia at $146. With 20.9% of global fashion sales now happening online, digital storefronts have cemented themselves as the industry’s most powerful runway. In the United States, 20.7% of consumers say they prefer to buy fashion online, a share that’s grown steadily as convenience, discounts, and fast delivery outpace the appeal of dressing rooms.
Behind the Digital Runway
Fashion e-commerce has quietly grown into one of the largest slices of the retail economy, accounting for nearly 20% of all online retail sales in the U.S. By next year, revenue from online apparel, footwear, and accessories is expected to hit $159 billion; a figure projected to climb to more than $219 billion in sales by 2029. Amazon remains the most dominant digital mall in the country, capturing the majority of online fashion traffic. Analysts estimate the U.S. fashion e-commerce market will reach roughly $144.97 billion in 2025 and more than double to $336 billion by 2032, growing at a brisk 12.8% annually.
This growth also fuels AI integration across the fashion sector. Rising expectations for personalized experiences and data-driven design are pushing the AI in the market toward an estimated USD 60 billion valuation by 2034, at CAGR of 39.12%.
Apparel remains the heavyweight, holding about 25% of the market thanks to flexible return policies and the irresistible logic of trying on half a closet without leaving home.
The bigger question is who or what is powering this growth. AI now sits at the center of the fashion pipeline, from product search and recommendation to automated styling and increasingly, the production of digital fashion content.
Augmented reality has become the new favorite tool in the industry. Though AR has existed for years, its adoption in fashion is still relatively new. Retailers rely on it not just to entertain but to make shopping feel more tangible. Deloitte reports that 71% of shoppers would buy more often if they could use AR, and 40% would even pay more if they could test a product virtually. The technology delivers something e-commerce has always struggled with confidence.
A new kind of Window Shopping
Burberry has been one of the boldest early adopters. The brand’s partnership with Google allowed shoppers to view items in detailed 3D, blending the store experience directly into the browser. The experiment broadened Burberry’s reach, strengthened its digital luxury presence, and gave customers a clearer picture of what they were buying.
Along with AR is AI, helping visual try-ons push the boundary even further. Perplexity recently launched a virtual try-on tool that builds a digital twin from a user’s photos and shows them wearing real clothing pulled from online stores.
Meet the new model
This shift has also spilled into fashion’s most visible arena i.e., modelling. AI-generated models have moved from fringe experiments to full campaigns. Precedence Research predicts the AI fashion market will reach $60 billion by 2034, growing nearly 40% every year. This summer, Vogue featured a Guess advertisement with a flawless blonde model, who turned out to be entirely AI-generated. It was the magazine’s first encounter with an AI-created face, and the reaction was split among public with some arguing the move felt “lazy and cheap."
The concerns are not new. In 2020, model and tech founder Sinéad Bovell wrote that AI would eventually take her job, questioning how consent and likeness would be regulated once models’ images are fed into training systems. Her warning rings louder now.
Yet a parallel movement has emerged. Some models are choosing to create digital clones of themselves, licensing their replicas through platforms like Kartel.ai. The digital versions gives models the ability to “be” in multiple shoots simultaneously without travel, makeup, or the unpredictability of a studio day. The hope is that these clones become a supplemental income stream, not a replacement.
The challenge, as always, is balance. For brands, AI reduces production costs and speeds up campaigns. For models, it offers new revenue but also raises the fear that once a digital replica exists, it could eventually overshadow the human behind it. Fashion is building a future where shoppers, products, and even models can all exist digitally. Whether this becomes a more inclusive version of the industry or a more synthetic one will depend on how regulation, compensation, and creativity evolve. What’s clear is that fashion’s next chapter lives at the intersection of e-commerce, AI, and the kind of tech that’s rewriting how we shop in the first place.