Bambuser powered Asos Stylist app in ChatGPT launch showcases fundamental tension in AI mediated commerce
Asos recently launched Stylist, an app in ChatGPT that brings fashion discovery through products and video content to customers in the UK and US.
This helps people discover Asos products directly in ChatGPT and shop them on the fast fashion giant’s website. It has been built using video commerce platform Bambuser.
Stylist uses Bambuser’s new Intelligence Layer capability and video player widget to turn Asos’ product catalogue and video library into structured, machine readable data that can be processed, retrieved, and returned, by large language models (LLMs) in real-time as shoppable videos. Shoppers can browse individual products or complete looks by category, occasion, or trend, receive styling guidance, and explore pieces from hundreds of brands.
E-commerce and digital commerce executive, Steve Webster (whose CV includes stints at Barbour and Liwa Trading Enterprises) took it for a spin, with mixed results.
In a LinkedIn post, he said: “Asked it to build a smart casual wardrobe for a middle-aged man and it returns a Mango blazer, Jack & Jones shirts, Thomas Crick Evers trainers. Competent enough. Then it reaches the fragrance section. Tom Ford Oud Wood, it recommends. Excellent choice. It then links directly to tomfordbeauty.co.uk. Not Asos. Not an Asos product. A direct link to a luxury fragrance retailer that Asos does not stock. It deployed an AI stylist and within three minutes the AI had sent a customer to a competitor.”
He added: “This is not a criticism of the ambition. Placing your brand inside an agentic platform where 17 million customers are already spending time is a reasonable strategic bet. The Bambuser integration, which converts Asos’s video library and product catalogue into machine readable data that ChatGPT can return as shoppable content in real-time, is technically well conceived. The problem is structural, not executional.”
“When you build a commerce experience on top of someone else’s intelligence layer, you inherit that layer’s associations, its breadth of knowledge, and its definition of a good answer. ChatGPT knows Tom Ford Oud Wood is the right fragrance for a mature man building a smart casual wardrobe. It also knows Asos does not stock it. So it linked out, because the right answer for the customer is not always the commercially convenient answer for the retailer. A human stylist working exclusively for Asos would have navigated that gap. ChatGPT does not operate within those constraints. It optimises for the stated need, not for the conversion rate.”
This, Webster argued, is the fundamental tension in AI mediated commerce that very few people are examining honestly. The AI will always try to be genuinely helpful. Genuine helpfulness and single retailer distribution are not the same objective, however.
He concluded: “There is an attribution question here that I suspect will prove uncomfortable: for every session that produces a shoppable Asos purchase, how many produce a visit to Tom Ford, or Hermès, or wherever else the AI concluded was the better answer? The channel looks like distribution. In some sessions it probably is. In others, Asos is funding a very sophisticated referral engine for everyone else.”
Asos and Bambuser did not respond to our request for comment.
2026 RTIH Innovation Awards
AI will be a key focus area at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards.
The awards are now open for entries and celebrate global retail technology innovation in a fast moving omnichannel world.
Our winners will be revealed at the 2026 RTIH Innovation Awards Ceremony, taking place at The HAC in Central London on Wednesday, 4th November.
Check out our 2025 winners here.
Our 2025 hall of fame entrants were revealed during a sold out event which took place at The HAC on 16th October and consisted of a drinks reception, three course meal, and awards ceremony presided over by award winning comedian, actress and writer Tiff Stevenson.
In his welcome speech, Scott Thompson, Founder and Editor, RTIH, said: “This is the awards’ fifth year as a physical event. We started off with just 30 people at the South Place Hotel not far from here, then moved to London Bridge Hotel, then The Barbican, and last year RIBA’s HQ in the West End.”
“But I’m conscious of the fact that, to quote the legend that is Taylor Swift, You’re only as hot as your last hit, baby. So, this year we’ve moved to our biggest venue yet, and also pulled in our largest number of entries to date and broken attendance records.”
He added: “This year’s submissions have without doubt been our best yet. To quote one of the judges: The examples of innovative developments across both traditional and digital retail spaces were truly remarkable.”
Congratulations to our winners, and a big thank you to our sponsors, judging panel, the legend that is Tiff Stevenson, and all those who attended our 2025 gathering.
