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Ralph Lauren (NYSE:RL) today introduced Ask Ralph, a new AI-powered conversational shopping experience that invites consumers to engage with, and be inspired by, Ralph Lauren’s unique and iconic take on style. Blending advanced AI technology with Ralph Lauren’s timeless brand, Ask Ralph provides styling inspiration by serving up multiple, shoppable visual laydowns of complete outfits, personalized to a user’s prompts, from across available inventory within the Men’s and Women’s Polo Ralph Lauren brand. Ask Ralph begins rolling out today to Ralph Lauren app users in the United States.

Continuing a decades-long partnership, Ask Ralph was developed with Microsoft on its Azure OpenAI platform and uses advanced conversational AI technology and natural language processing to understand open-ended prompts, interpret context and provide tailored recommendations to closely mimic the experience of speaking with an in-store stylist.

Ralph Lauren has launched Ask Ralph, an AI-powered conversational shopping tool built with Microsoft on Azure OpenAI.
The feature offers personalised, shoppable Polo Ralph Lauren outfits in response to user prompts, simulating an in-store stylist experience.
Available first to US app users, it provides styling inspiration and tailored recommendations to enhance discovery and brand engagement.

“Twenty-five years ago, we partnered with Microsoft to launch one of the fashion industry’s first e-commerce platforms, and today, we are once again redefining the shopping experience for the next generation,” said David Lauren, Chief Branding and Innovation Officer, Ralph Lauren Corporation. “Whether getting ready for a first day of a new job, or creating the perfect look for a night out, Ask Ralph is about more than just discovery – it is about engaging consumers with what they love most about Ralph Lauren: our iconic, unique take on style, providing timeless head-to-toe looks that inspire them to step into our world.”

Shoppers can interact with Ask Ralph just as they would with a stylist in a Ralph Lauren store, through simple, conversational prompts. From “What should I wear to a concert?” to “Show me some women’s Polo Bear sweaters,” or styling queries like, “How can I style my navy-blue men’s blazer?” Ask Ralph responds, surfacing visually laid out, complete Polo Ralph Lauren looks with styling tips, integrating content from across Ralph Lauren’s digital channels. Users can ask clarifying questions and refine the recommendations to align with their own sense of style. Ask Ralph makes it easy to add individual elements of a look to shopping carts or purchase the head-to-toe recommendation.

“AI is transforming the way consumers get inspired, educated and purchase from fashion brands around the world,” said Shelley Bransten, Corporate Vice President of Global Industry Solutions, Microsoft. “We’re proud to bring the combination of our trusted generative AI capabilities through Azure OpenAI together with Ralph Lauren’s iconic brand to pave the way for an entirely new conversational commerce experience.”

Informed by how users initially use and engage with Ask Ralph, the tool will continue to develop, including releasing new features and increased personalized experiences, expanding to additional Ralph Lauren brands and launching across more platforms in markets around the world.

Ask Ralph is the latest milestone in Ralph Lauren’s rich history of innovation and in leading the industry in creating immersive and cinematic retail experiences that transport consumers into the World of Ralph Lauren. Twenty-five years ago, the Company was one of the first luxury brands to pioneer e-commerce, setting a new industry standard. Always pushing boundaries to surprise, delight and inspire consumers, the Company has long experimented with cutting-edge ideas that were years ahead of their time – from interactive and virtual shopping technology to holograms, 4D projections and CGI animations.

The Company also continues to invest in AI and other technologies to enhance the consumer experience, like more personalized marketing and engaging digital experiences, as well as to optimize its operations, including predictive inventory management and product demand forecasting.

Note: The headline, insights, and image of this press release may have been refined by the Fibre2Fashion staff; the rest of the content remains unchanged.

Fibre2Fashion News Desk (RM)

Artificial intelligence is fast becoming “part of the furniture.” A decade after IBM’s Watson triumphed on “Jeopardy!,” generative AI models are in kitchens and home offices. People often talk about AI in science fiction terms, yet the most consequential change in 2025 may be its banal ubiquity.

To appreciate how ordinary AI use has become, it helps to remember that this trend didn’t start with generative chatbots. A 2017 Knowledge at Wharton newsletter documented how deep learning algorithms were already powering chatbots on social media and photo apps’ facial recognition functions. Digital assistants such as Siri and Alexa were performing everyday tasks, and AI-powered image generators could create images that fooled 40% of viewers.

When ChatGPT became publicly available on Nov. 30, 2022, the shift felt sudden, but it was built on years of incremental integration. AI’s presence is now so mundane that people consult chatbots for recipes, use them as study partners and rely on them for administrative chores.

As a writer and professor who studies ways that generative AI can be an everyday collaborator, I find that recent usage reports show how AI has been woven into everyday life. (Full disclosure: I am a member of OpenAI’s Educator Council, an uncompensated group of higher education faculty who provide feedback to OpenAI on educational use cases.)

Who’s using ChatGPT and why?

Economists at OpenAI and Harvard analyzed 1.5 million ChatGPT conversations from November 2022 through July 2025. Their findings show that adoption has broadened beyond early users: It’s being used all over the world, among all types of people. Adoption has grown fastest in low- and middle-income countries, and growth rates in the lowest-income countries are now more than four times those in the richest nations.

Most interactions revolve around mundane activities. Three-quarters of conversations involve practical guidance, information seeking and writing. These categories are for activities such as getting advice on how to cook an unusual type of food, where to find the nearest pharmacy, and getting feedback on email drafts. More than 70% of ChatGPT use is for nonwork tasks, demonstrating AI’s role in people’s personal lives. The economists found that 73% of messages were not related to work as of June 2025, up from 53% in June 2024.

Claude and the geography of adoption

Anthropic’s economic index paints a similar picture of uneven AI adoption. Researchers at the company tracked users’ conversations with the company’s Claude AI chatbot relative to the working-age population. The data shows sharp contrasts between nations. Singapore’s per-capita use is 4.6 times higher than expected based on its population size, and Canada’s is 2.9 times higher. India and Nigeria, meanwhile, use Claude at only a quarter of predicted levels.

In the United States, use reflects local economies, with activity tied to regional strengths: tech in California, finance in Florida and documentation in D.C. In lower-use countries, more than half of Claude’s activity involves programming. In higher-use countries, people apply it across education, science and business. High-use countries favor humans working iteratively with AI, such as refining text, while low-use countries rely more on delegating full tasks, such as finding information.

It’s important to note that OpenAI reports between 400 million and 700 million weekly active users in 2025, while third-party analytics estimate Claude at roughly 30 million monthly active users during a similar time period. For comparison, Gemini had approximately 350 million monthly active users and Microsoft reported in July 2025 more than 100 million monthly active users for its Copilot apps. Perplexity’s CEO reported in an interview that the company’s language AI has a “user base of over 30 million active users.”

While these metrics are from a similar time period, mid-2025, it’s important to note the differences in reporting and metrics, particularly weekly versus monthly active users. By any measure, though, ChatGPT’s user base is by far the largest, making it a commonly used generative AI tool for everyday tasks.

Everyday tool

So, what do mundane uses of AI look like at home? Consider these scenarios:

• Meal planning and recipes: A parent asks ChatGPT for vegan meal ideas that use leftover kale and mushrooms, saving time and reducing waste.
• Personal finance: ChatGPT drafts a budget, suggests savings strategies or explains the fine print of a credit card offer, translating legalese into plain language.
• Writing support: Neurodivergent writers use ChatGPT to organize ideas and scaffold drafts. A writer with ADHD can upload notes and ask the model to group them into themes, then expand each into a paragraph while keeping the writer’s tone and reasoning. This helps reduce cognitive overload and supports focus, while the writer retains their own voice.

These scenarios illustrate that AI can help with mundane decisions, act as a sounding board and support creativity. The help with mundane tasks can be a big lift: By handling routine planning and information retrieval, AI frees people to focus on empathy, judgment and reflection.

From extraordinary to ordinary tool

AI has transitioned from a futuristic curiosity to an everyday co-pilot, with voice assistants and generative models helping people write, cook and plan.

Inviting AI to our kitchen tables not as a mysterious oracle but as a helpful assistant means cultivating AI literacy and learning prompting techniques. It means recognizing AI’s strengths, mitigating its risks and shaping a future where intelligence—human and artificial—works for everyone.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.