Welcome to this week's AI edition of The Commerce Brief 🤖

✦ THIS WEEK’S AI INDUSTRY UPDATES

01. Marks & Spencer has deployed Lily AI's Product Intelligence Platform to automate and improve the creation of structured product data at scale, reducing manual effort and the number of partners required to bring new items to market. The retailer is using the technology to improve Google Shopping and organic search performance, ensuring every product is accurately attributed, categorised, and ready for discovery from day one. (source)

02. Inditex has reached close to 100% self-checkout penetration across many of its stores, with CEO Óscar García Maceiras confirming the group will continue investing in AI, tech-driven store formats, and logistics automation in the coming years. Sister brand Massimo Dutti has also debuted a checkout-free store concept with the opening of its first Denmark location on Østergade, Copenhagen. (source)

03. Whering, the London-based wardrobe styling app, has raised $7 million in seed funding led by eBay Ventures and the Google AI Futures Fund, as the platform surpasses 10 million users globally. The app, which launched in 2021, uses AI to help users create outfits from clothing they already own. (source)

04.  Square has launched integrations with OpenAI's ChatGPT and Anthropic's Claude to enable agentic commerce, including an app for ChatGPT and a plugin for Claude. The integrations are designed to help sellers get discovered and transact at the moment customers are making purchasing decisions through AI-powered conversations. (source)

05. Leroy Merlin France is using an AI chatbot called Pocket Coach to train sales associates through realistic simulated customer conversations. Following a four-month pilot across eight stores, the retailer reported greater staff confidence, improved sales results, and higher customer satisfaction scores. (source)

06. Scandit has launched Age Verified Self-Checkout, a solution that enables retailers to automate age verification for restricted purchases such as alcohol, tobacco, and medication at self-checkout, with no additional kiosk hardware required. Shoppers verify their age in under ten seconds via their smartphone, with no app download needed. (source)

07. Fleek, the London-based startup building AI infrastructure to digitise second-hand fashion supply chains for platforms including Vinted, Depop, and Whatnot, has raised $25 million in Series B funding. The round was led by Burda Principal Investments, with participation from eBay, FJ Labs, and H14, alongside existing backers including Andreessen Horowitz and HV Capital, bringing total funding to £45 million. (source)

08.  Taco Bell has expanded its partnership with voice AI provider Omilia, deploying its automated order-taking solution across 890+ US drive-thrus in 38 states. The solution adapts to each location's menu, real-time stock levels, and limited-time offers, and builds on a partnership that began in 2023. (source)

09. Alibaba will ban employees from using Anthropic's AI tools for work from July 10, placing Claude Code on a high-risk software list over alleged back-door security risks. The move follows Anthropic's June letter to the US Senate accusing Alibaba of carrying out "the largest known distillation attack" to illicitly extract its AI capabilities; Anthropic's terms already bar Chinese companies and other "adversarial nations" from using its models. Alibaba staff must uninstall all Anthropic models and agent products and switch to the company's own AI assistant, Qoder. (source)

10. GHD has launched Sculpt, its first AI styling tool, which reads hair temperature nearly 3,000 times per second to adjust heat and prevent damage. (source)

That's a wrap for this week! If you found this useful or if you have any feedback, hit reply and let me know, or share it with someone in the industry who'd enjoy the read.

Thanks - Sue