What It Means When a Retailer Moves to Generative AI

When a retailer with a global portfolio commits its product photography pipeline to Generative AI, it isn't placing a bet on a trend — it's acting on results. One need look no further than Zalando. Matthias Haase, its Vice President of Content Solutions, told Reuters that costs fell about 90% and campaign turnaround went from six to eight weeks down to three or four days. By the fourth quarter of 2024, roughly 70% of the retailer's editorial campaign photography was produced this way. That is a brand setting a new standard for AI-based photography and the use of talent models.

What the Commitment Actually Means

It's easy to take a move like this as a brand buying a workflow to produce cheaper AI-based imagery. That's the wrong approach, however, and it's worth highlighting because it's the same mistake that sinks other companies learning to use AI and their marketing programs.

What a retailer at this scale is buying is a shorter loop in its workflow. A traditional campaign locks its shot list weeks ahead of the shoot day, so whatever the market is doing when those assets go live, the brand committed early and has no good way to respond in terms of speed to market if anything changes and they need to adapt.

A pipeline that returns brand-standard work in days turns campaign photography from a fixed asset into something a team can revise mid-campaign — a different capability altogether, and not simply a cheaper version to shoot AI-based photography.

Two Types of Marketers Approaching GenAI for Brand Imagery, and What Each One Costs

The first group of marketers are moving. Photographers who added Generative Photography to the craft they already had are finding the market widening rather than closing — brief interpretation and an audit of outputs are a key part of the job, and they now already have both skills. Agencies that added the same capacity are winning pitches that a traditional photography service can't price against.

The second group is still waiting — they accept this is real, but haven't yet built anything. The cost of waiting isn't to hold out for ‘better’ Gen AI, because the platforms will continue to be easier to use. The window of opportunity for this group is a focus on generative photography skills, which their agencies and in-house creative teams can learn and be trained on to produce high-quality, photorealistic imagery.

To see which sectors are restructuring first, retail among them, download our free guide 'The Top 5 Industries Driving Demand for Generative Photography': genphotography.com/asset/top5industries