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Emerging automation technologies, paired with generative AI, are expected to unlock productivity gains of more than 30 percent over the next 5 years, according to BoF and McKinsey’s The State of Fashion 2026 report — making them among the most immediate and transformative forces reshaping how organisations operate.
However, efficiency gains alone no longer suffice.
Fashion and beauty businesses — faced with increased competition and thinning margins in a turbulent global economic climate — are vying for the attention of consumers who have become increasingly indifferent to formulaic digital marketing. For brands reliant on e-commerce, marketing campaigns paired with digital offerings that emotionally resonate with consumers acts as a critical differentiator.
Yet, creating this content at scale is a growing challenge. Traditional photo and video shoots remain time-intensive, costly and difficult to adapt across markets and platforms.
As a global e-commerce content production company serving clients across the US, Europe and Asia, Pixel Moda was created to help brands unlock AI-powered efficiency gains. The company leverages generative and assistive AI to streamline the production of high-end visual assets for fashion and luxury brands. It harnesses AI as a support system for human creativity — rather than a replacement for it, all while respecting individual brand DNA.
By taking advantage of Pixel Moda’s proprietary technology, brands can maximise the productivity of e-commerce product photos and videos by supplementing creative and commercial shoots with AI-generated or AI-assisted assets.
On stage at BoF VOICES 2025, Pixel Moda’s founder and president Gianni Serazzi was joined by Fabrizio Cardinali, CEO of Italian fashion brand Etro — a Pixel Moda client that has seen its e-commerce business grow by nearly 50 percent in the last couple of years. “We didn’t achieve this by pushing harder, but by working smarter,” said Cardinali. “We can now produce creative content at a speed that was previously unimaginable.”
Indeed, Pixel Moda’s AI-assisted photoshoot offerings provide efficient, real-time feedback to teams on set, while its generative capabilities allow brands to create customised models with exclusive rights — enabling them to modify backgrounds, poses and full-body imagery digitally.
In 2023, McKinsey estimated that generative AI alone could add between $150 and $275 billion in operating profits to the apparel, fashion and luxury sectors by 2028. Pixel Moda is an exemplary use-case of this technology.
More than 30 images and videos can be generated and multiplied per SKU, with a typical turnaround time of 24 to 48 hours. The company works with over 900 brands and multi-brand retailers, and produces about 14 million pictures and videos annually, with that number rising exponentially each year, according to Serazzi. In some instances, Serazzi reports cost reductions of up to 70 percent for image production and up to 90 percent for video production and over 20 percent uplift in e-commerce sales.
Pixel Moda’s technology is also tailored to specific client use cases, particularly where localised representation is key to brand loyalty.
Now, BoF sits down with Serazzi to discuss how brands can scale content production without compromising brand value — and free up time for creative output to be reallocated elsewhere.
What is the biggest barrier to AI adoption for e-commerce businesses today?
For businesses, practical application of artificial intelligence is about spending less while selling more. The biggest barrier is impractical AI solutions — without any meaningful increase in productivity or revenue.
In truth, content production in fashion is bloated — and is sometimes quite emotional and often political. Many of the major brands have in-house studios who have shot every campaign over the last decade. It’s hard to optimise that without stepping on people’s feet.
Some brands simply pretend the next wave of technology is not here simply to avoid conflict. The companies dragging their feet today are, I suspect, going to feel that lag tomorrow.
Beyond cost savings, what performance metrics improve most significantly when brands adopt AI-generated commerce imagery?
Brands can respond quickly to consumer demand, both in terms of shooting which SKUs are selling and which creative narratives are resonating most strongly.
For example, we can create digital models that closely resemble humans and can be customised or refined so they align perfectly with our clients’ aesthetics and creative direction. Once a full collection is live online, brands can monitor performance in real-time and, within days, will clearly see which SKUs are actually selling.
To make that content go further, within 48 hours, we can generate five, ten or fifteen high-quality editorial images for each top-performing SKU that has been shot for standard product detail pages. These images are typically indistinguishable from traditional shoots. Plus, the cost reduction is dramatic compared to traditional editorial production.
That content can also be deployed immediately on Instagram and other digital platforms. Within days, brands can measure engagement and identify which visuals resonate most with their audiences. And because the AI-generated images are sold with unlimited usage rights — across time, geography and channels — there are no additional licensing costs.
What is a common misconception in working with AI-enhanced visual content?
A misconception we are trying to break is the belief that if we work with different brands, our output must be homogenised. We train our AI models and algorithms specifically for each individual brand.
As a result, we believe we create images at a fraction of the traditional cost that actually respect and represent the brand DNA more accurately than a human photographer working in isolation. We utilise a synergy of human expertise and technology to embed our clients’ DNA within the visuals, which is why we see brands run full campaigns with our imagery.
How do you believe AI-generated or AI-assisted imagery can strengthen consumers’ emotional bond to the brand?
The reality is that brands need a higher volume of content, and moving from producing three or four pictures to say, 15, allows the conversion rate to significantly increase. Brands have been aware this is the case for quite some time, but they didn’t have the budget or means to produce it.
With Pixel Moda, they do: our technology is a means for brands to get more customised content to build out and strengthen the emotional bond with their consumers.
For example, we have witnessed our clients perform better in markets where campaign imagery is localised to the region — we see that sales in Asia are increased when products are shown on Asian models.
By utilising generative AI and AI-assisted workflows, teams can dramatically improve efficiency.. One CEO we work with described it as “having 500 producers on set at once.” AI allows us to produce content with superhuman precision and at a scale that was unimaginable just a few months ago.
What are the biggest cultural and leadership challenges brands face when adopting AI-driven innovation in fashion?
On one side, there are brands that recognise the massive potential of this technology. They see the opportunity to increase sales by up to 60 percent while simultaneously halving their production budgets. These companies want the technology implemented by tomorrow.
On the other side, there are companies focused on protectionism — asking how to shield their current suppliers, teams and legacy processes. They are resistant to any change. This is fundamentally a cultural issue.
This shift almost always comes from the top-down. We have seen massive luxury groups and brands that refused to even speak with us for years. Then, a CEO change or a new head of marketing occurs and these new leaders push aggressively for innovation. Truly, these are the individuals who will save these brands.
Want to dive deeper into an insight from this article? Check out The Brain of Fashion, BoF’s new generative AI tool where you can unlock BoF’s technology archive with a single question.
This is a sponsored feature paid for by Pixel Moda as part of a BoF partnership.
