Maroc - NEWSDAY.CO.TT - A la Une - 10/Nov 05:24

Anya Ayoung-Chee Vibes and Thrives with AI

TT felt a swell of collective pride when Anya Ayoung-Chee won US reality competition series, Project Runway in 2011. The former Miss TT Universe has been a leader in contemporary Caribbean fashion and design. She now believes that artificial intelligence (AI) and its derivative tools could help develop Caribbean small businesses, particularly as this country looks more and more to non-oil and gas sectors as forex earners. She has launched her first collection in 12 years called Vibe and Thrive using AI. The technology has become integrated in her business processes and she plans to deepen its use going along. Her first introduction to AI was two years ago at the global technology retreat, Tech Beach. That was the first time she had ever used Open AI’s ChatGPT. While AI has rapidly evolved since then, Ayoung-Chee quickly understood that it was different to experience the technology as opposed to applying it for business. Since then she has been using the wide range of LLMs (Large Language Models) available: from ChaptGPT to Claude. [caption id="attachment_1189426" align="alignnone" width="1024"] At the end of November, Anya Ayoung-Chee hopes to launch a platform for Spool that will match garment makers around the world to consumers and clients of Bespoke products.[/caption] She has largely used these to help her develop business strategy and to locate new markets. While many are concerned with AI replacing human skill and talent, Ayoung-Chee does not see it doing that. She largely sees it as a refinement of already existing human talent and skill. “For me, primarily as a creative person, I can now at least write draft business plans, proposals to potential partners or investors in language that I can conceptually understand but never had the language for,” she said. The AI acts as a “translator” for her, as a creative business person, to be able to have effective conversations. It also tells stories about her brand using data, gives insights into the business’ trajectory using financial models and contexts. She explained to Newsday how AI worked throughout the development of her new line during an in-person interview at her garment production facility, Spool in Woodbrook. “The ideation to prototype and production of the garment has remained traditional for now but the marketing materials development and the development of the website, all of that I did by myself. “Initially, I would have needed a web developer, photographer, videographer, editor, re-toucher, marketing campaign developer…” [caption id="attachment_1189427" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Anya Ayoung-Chee believes that artificial intelligence (AI) and its derivative tools could help develop Caribbean small businesses, particularly as this country looks more and more to non-oil and gas sectors as forex earners. [/caption] She shot the line’s photos in a studio and was not entirely pleased with the output and then used Perplexity AI to convert those to usable, high-end, output, she said. “If you look at my website now, you’ll see it is a combination of traditional photography and AI-generated models. “They look global-standard. They look as if you’d shot them in a high-end photo shoot.” This resulted in cost reduction and reduced timelines, Ayoung-Chee said. She understood the intellectual property arguments in AI debates but believed that that was a wider matter of personal integrity. “I do think it comes down to integrity when it comes to the plagiarism side of things. At the end of the day, the creative person still has the vision. The creative person is at the heart of the campaign, designing the clothes or the musician making the music, their intuition around what they are creating remains individual to them. “The AI can’t create that but can enhance it. It can take an inkling of an idea, and in minutes, turn it into something that would have taken months with many other people involved. “Oftentimes, the many other people involved, can cause a barrier between your idea and the end result.” For her, AI’s intervention in her business resulted in her spending less, doing more and having higher quality output. This was a dream for any small business, she added. “Not to mention, a lot of these tools are not, necessarily, always free but they are accessible.” Although there are also major debates about racial and ethnic bias in AI, Ayoung-Chee said the model she chose for her e-commerce imagery was intentionally mixed race and representative, not necessarily in body type, but ethnically of TT. She believes AI would become more representative once more Trinidadians interact with LLMs and create. [caption id="attachment_1189424" align="alignnone" width="1024"] Anya Ayoung-Chee has launched her first collection in 12 years called Vibe and Thrive. -[/caption] “This is another reason I advocate for being courageous enough to dive in because we can’t influence without understanding and the fear to even get that far will prevent us from being in the conversation.” AI’s rule book was not fully fleshed out and this provided an opportunity for TT and regional people to add their say. “We are still at the very early stages of how creative people use this tech. We have a particular way of thinking of how this technology is best applied. To wait because we are concerned we are not well represented enough is a lost opportunity. “Why not be in the conversation on how we build these tools effectively for us?” Ayoung-Chee estimated she spent about 65 per cent less than she usually would have in launching this line. That was why she urged small businesses in TT and the region to find novel, safe and conscious ways to embrace AI and add it to their processes. Vibe and Thrive After winning Project Runway in 2011, Ayoung-Chee did fashion for a number of years and then opened the co-working space and cafe called Home in St Clair. She then worked collaboratively with regional conglomerate Massy on Nudge which was a social enterprise aimed at supporting micro, small and medium enterprises in the Caribbean. “I got drawn into social innovation work and developed Nudge with Massy, which was a social enterprise which supported entrepreneurs across the region.” At Spool she trained 94 women from at-risk backgrounds on how to produce for fashion and Carnival. “Somewhere in the mix of winning Runway I got disenchanted with selling clothes just for the sake of selling clothes. “I needed to root myself in the why…” Throughout her developing career, she was always very conscious of her impact in the region and when she won the competition, she knew she had even more platform to do that. Returning to design is Ayoung-Chee leveraging her platform to bring more commercial success towards sustained impact, she said. She wants to now leverage her brand to build a successful export business that brings in foreign exchange and that creates sustainable employment for women she feels are most impactful in their communities. At the end of November, she hopes to launch a platform for Spool that will match garment makers around the world to consumers and clients of Bespoke products. It’s Ayoung-Chee’s Fiverr for fashion. This, she hopes, would help to maintain and grow the talent pool of skilled garment makers and designers around the globe. She is a recipient of an Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), European Union (EU) Shaping the Future Innovation grant which would fund the launch of the Spool platform. Although it is a small collection, it bears Ayoung-Chee’s signature style: resort wear, dynamic prints and flowy. Her next collection will be very focused on the European and Middle Eastern markets and she’d be switching to more sustainable and breathable fabrics. For the Vibe and Thrive collection, Ayoung-Chee sourced material in TT but, going forward, she hopes to source material in a way that matches the audience she is trying to reach. “The global resort market is set to grow by six per cent annually and so we want to make sure we are tapping into where we have the credibility as a region designing resort wear and where there is opportunity where we can scale the business.” She hopes to have the next collection ready by March 2026 and also plans to release collections on a rolling basis as opposed to seasonally. The covid19 pandemic changed how people shop, she said. “In this particular moment in time, where it is urgent we find new ways to grow our economy, businesses like mine and supporters of businesses like mine not just in the creative industry but across the non-oil and gas sectors, it is our time to really show up and flourish.”   The post Anya Ayoung-Chee Vibes and Thrives with AI appeared first on Trinidad and Tobago Newsday.