Boohoo parent Debenhams Group expands Amazon AI deployment
A U.K.-based global online fashion retail conglomerate is rolling out cloud and artificial intelligence technology from Amazon.
Debenhams Group, the parent of online fashion retailers including Boohoo, BoohooMan, Debenhams, PrettyLittleThing, and Karen Millen, is accelerating its adoption of AI through a new multi-year agreement with Amazon Web Services (AWS), the hosted cloud division of Amazon.
The retailer already uses serverless AWS cloud services on the Debenhams platform to help it facilitate the faster onboarding of third-party sellers, provide a broader product selection and streamline the customer purchasing process.
Building on this foundation, Debenhams will now deploy technologies like generative AI in an effort to increase operational efficiencies and improve personalization.
“Collaborating with AWS is a key part of our long-term strategy to transform Debenhams Group into a modern, technology-led retailer,” said Dan Finley, CEO of Debenham Group. “We’ve successfully replaced outdated legacy systems with scalable, cloud-first architecture that’s adaptable, resilient and built to support innovation well into the group’s future.”
Debenhams Group will also generate AI content using the Amazon Bedrock proprietary generative AI platform to automate product descriptions and translations across tens of thousands of products. The company hopes to improve consistency and localization of product descriptions, as well as speed-to-market of product releases.
Automating product descriptions has made the process 20 times faster, according to Debenhams Group. In addition, translations into six languages happen automatically, helping get items ready to sell in different countries more quickly.
Other planned AWS AI technology deployments include:
- The launch of an interactive AI room styler, co-developed through the AWS Prototyping investment program, will let customers upload a photo, select a design style and receive personalized decor suggestions.
- AI-based product attribution and taxonomy will make search and navigation more intuitive.
After successful initial rollout across the Debenhams banner and its labels, the company will now embed AWS technology across its other brands, with Boohoo scheduled to adopt AWS AI technologies in the coming weeks.
"We're delighted to expand our collaboration with Debenhams Group as they continue to accelerate their adoption of AI," said Duncan Stewart, head of retail & CPG UK & Ireland, Amazon Web Services. "By leveraging the flexibility and scalability of the cloud, Debenhams Group now has the technology foundations to quickly build and deploy innovative new AI-powered products and services across all of its brands, which will help drive business productivity and growth. We look forward to supporting their continued success."
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Debenhams Group is based in the U.K. and was founded in 1778.
