Fashion Storytelling in the Age of Agentic AI: Not Just Machines

Synthetic Intimacy

At Nextatlas, we have been tracking this shift since 2024. We define Synthetic Intimacy as the moment when AI becomes a reflective medium through which individuals process who they are and who they are becoming. In this sense, AI operates as a catalyst for introspection. It enters the decision-making process as a co-thinker, offering feedback, pattern recognition, and contextual memory that reshape self-perception.

Our data confirms that this is not a marginal phenomenon. The report forecasts +41% predicted growth of Synthetic Intimacy conversations over the next 12 months. Early adopters describe AI as an embodied counterpart that mirrors and extends their agency, leading to an overall predominantly positive Sentiment. Rather than perceiving AI as a threat, conversations among our early adopters highlight the benefits of augmentation and the power of AI to clarify, structure, and sharpen self-understanding.

AI Becomes a Reflective Medium

This was recently explored in a WWD article titled "As AI Agents Take Over Search, Fashion Brands Need to Rethink Storytelling and IP", where our CEO, Luca Morena, and Insights Manager, Joanna Damaszko, were interviewed on the rise of agentic AI in fashion search and retail. As Morena explained, “People enjoy mystery, enjoy serendipity, enjoy recommendations from peers. It doesn’t always have to be about solving a problem.” In an environment increasingly mediated by AI agents, efficiency alone does not define value. Discovery remains emotional, symbolic, and deeply personal.

Damaszko expanded on this idea in the same interview, noting that “AI is not the facilitator, but it’s a catalyst for introspection.” She emphasised that conversational AI introduces a new kind of private interface. Consumers use these systems to test ideas, rehearse conversations, and explore preferences in what she described as a “safe space”. Within fashion, that intimacy has profound implications. Clothing has always functioned as a language of identity. When AI mediates that language, it participates in shaping the narrative of the self.

Delegated Selfhood and Cognitive Ease

Agentic AI also addresses another structural tension: cognitive overload. Endless scrolling, comparison, and micro-decisions have turned shopping into mental labor. According to our analysis, conversations around decision fatigue in retail are predicted to grow by +56% year on year, while interest in intelligent agents is forecast to rise by +77%. In this context, AI mediates choice by reducing friction and consolidating micro-decisions into one conversational flow. When AI mediates choice, consumers are no longer deciding alone. They are co-deciding, and the assistant becomes part of the decision-making process

Power Shifts in the Age of Agentic Search

Yet this evolution also redistributes power. Whoever controls the AI agent and its training data shapes how brands are represented when a bot, not a human, is doing the buying. Discovery increasingly occurs inside aggregated systems. Brands risk becoming interchangeable data points if they focus solely on structured feeds and machine readability. Our data shows predictive growth in machine-readable optimisation sits alongside rising interest in hidden stories and steganography (48%+ and 40%+ over 12 months respectively).

Consumers are drawn to layered meaning, symbolism, and narrative depth. Physical experiences, word of mouth, and cultural credibility become infrastructural signals that feed the algorithm with human context. In an AI-mediated landscape, what resists full translation into code gains distinctiveness.

Morena summarised the tension clearly in the WWD interview: “If brands don’t build better stories, and have their agents and IP do the same, we will flatten culture, taste, identity.” Synthetic Intimacy, therefore, presents both opportunity and risk. Brands that treat AI purely as a transactional layer may sacrifice expressive nuance. Those that integrate AI into storytelling, identity exploration, and sensory experience strengthen relevance.

Trend lines, data, and information described in this article emerge from the ongoing analysis performed by Nextatlas on its global observation pool made of innovators, early adopters, industry insiders expressing their views on Twitter, Instagram, and Reddit.

To learn more about our AI, discover Nextatlas Methodology here