Apparel Group launches AIVI, an AI shopping app for six GCC markets.
Apparel Group has launched AIVI, an AI-driven fashion and lifestyle shopping app, in the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Qatar, Bahrain and Oman. The group's loyalty scheme, Club Apparel, has been renamed Club AIVI and folded into the app.
The app carries more than 200,000 styles and products, and Apparel Group says it serves more than 15 million customers across the GCC. An AI assistant takes text or voice requests and suggests outfits and products based on a shopper's preferences, past purchases and earlier searches. A virtual try-on feature lets people upload or take a photo to see how an item might look on them. Selected products are promised within 60 minutes in the UAE and 90 minutes in the other five markets.
Club AIVI links the app to a loyalty network of more than 2,600 stores and over 85 international brands in 14 countries, with points earned and spent online, in store and at the group's food and drink outlets. Existing Club Apparel members keep their accounts without doing anything. The launch is backed by an original song, Own Your Vibe (3ala Jawwak), sung in Arabic, Hindi and English by Saudi singer Zena Emad and Indian rapper Karma. Warner Music MENA distributes it, with a music video and a digital campaign built on the line "AIVI is me. AIVI is you. AIVI is us."
Group CEO Neeraj Teckchandani described the app as the point where the group's store network and customer knowledge meet AI and data. AIVI's CEO, Vivek Rajukumar, pitched it as a companion that recommends products before customers ask. The company hasn't shared download targets, how much of its sales it expects the app to carry, or how data from the assistant will be used beyond recommendations.
For brands sold through Apparel Group's stores, AIVI becomes another large owned channel with loyalty and first-party data attached, which is the raw material for retail media if the group chooses to sell it. For marketers in Saudi Arabia and the wider Gulf, the trilingual launch is also a clear example of one campaign built to speak to Arab and South Asian shoppers at the same time.
Why it matters
One of the Gulf's biggest retail groups now puts AI styling, virtual try-on and loyalty in one app across six markets, raising the bar for regional fashion e-commerce.
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