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Shopping used to be simple. You walked into a store, tried on jeans, and decided in 30 seconds if they made your butt look weird. Today? Most of us shop online for everything — including clothes — and it often goes hilariously, tragically wrong.
According to Capital One Shopping Research, nearly 124 million Americans — one in every three of us — will buy clothes online this year. And we’ll send back one out of every four of those items. That adds up to billions in lost revenue for retailers, and a pile of packaging waste, shipping costs and frustration for the rest of us.
Flat product photos, inconsistent sizing charts, and confusing return rules are just part of the problem. Overall, online clothes shopping is still an expensive guessing game.
The age-old problem of ‘What am I going to wear today?’
A new breed of AI-powered fashion tools is stepping in — not just to reduce returns, but to rewire how we discover and buy clothes in the first place.
I tested two of the biggest options: GlanceAI, a free virtual styling app for iOS and Android, and Google’s new Try-On tool, which uses generative AI to show how clothes look on your actual body.
I bought clothes I genuinely like, using both of them. But are these next-gen tech tools perfect? Not yet. Here’s what works, what doesn’t and what you need to know.
Your selfie, styled
The way GlanceAI works is really simple. Upload a full-body selfie, and in seconds, GlanceAI shows photorealistic images of you wearing outfits curated to your body type, skin tone and even local weather. If you like what you see, tap to shop similar products from retailers like Macy’s, Nordstrom and Zara.
The goal here is to turn your phone’s camera into your personal stylist. Not a size-zero mannequin. Not a filter-heavy avatar. You.
“We’re not trying to turn you into someone else,” GlanceAI CEO Naveen Tewari told me over a video call. “We’re trying to help you discover the best version of you.”
I tested it with a full-body selfie and got styled in outfits that genuinely looked like something I’d wear — from TV appearances and Zoom calls to farm chores and school drop-off. After some thumbs-up, thumbs-down tweaks, the images were surprisingly spot-on. No weird proportions. No six-fingered claw-hands. Tewari added, “It’s not just ‘what shirt fits me?’ It’s ‘what outfit makes sense for me right now, in my city, with my vibe?’”
According to the company, in less than a month since its launch, the app has created more than 40 million personalized outfit images for over 1.5 million users in the U.S. alone, with 40% of them shopping in the app on a weekly basis. GlanceAI earns money through affiliate sales.
Where GlanceAI promises to improve
GlanceAI still feels like a beta app, essentially because it is. I gave Tewari a laundry list of tweaks and features that I want to see, and he told me they’re all on the way.
The main “cover” outfits — the ones in categories like “Dopamine Dressing” or “Bold Blazers” — don’t exist. You tap on that killer floral jacket, but instead, you get redirected to “similar” items you’re not that into. That’s a bummer.
Even when I found something I liked, I wanted to see myself in that exact item, not an approximation. Tewari says both direct item previews and better filtering are in the works. Right now, there’s no way to search by style, brand or size.
Another issue? Some of the clothes just look… dated. I kept thinking, ‘Wait, I had that exact Rugby shirt in 1996.’ It’s not just about matching an outfit to your body type — fashion needs to feel fresh. According to Tewari, better product feeds and more brand partnerships are on the way to address that issue as well.
And inclusivity is still lagging. The app doesn’t yet work well for plus-size, non-binary or adaptive body types. That’s not a minor bug — it’s a must-fix.
That said, GlanceAI is more than a gimmick. It’s fun to share with friends, and if they deliver the updates as promised, it will change the way we shop for clothes for good.
My suggestion? Try it, train it, and know this is how you’re going to be doing most of your shopping in a year or two from now. A year ago, I barely used ChatGPT. Now I use it every day. So do 100 million other people. I could be writing the same thing about GlanceAI in a year from now.
Google Try-On: AI, but make it searchable
Google’s latest entry into AI shopping lets you upload a full-length selfie and see how real clothes look on you. Not a stock model. Not an AI composite.
The feature lives inside Google Search Labs and is available for select brands like Levi’s, Abercrombie, Quince and Pistola Denim. The realism is impressive. AI-generated images demonstrate how a shirt drapes on your shoulders and how pants fit your hips.
How it works: You search for an item — say, “white linen blazer under $100” — then tap “Try It On.” Upload a selfie, and Google overlays the item onto your image using generative AI. No extra app required.
Google’s tools are powered by its massive Shopping Graph, which tracks more than 50 billion products and updates listings in real time. And Google says your photos stay on your device unless you opt to save or share them.
Where Google struggles
Here’s the downside: Good luck figuring out which products actually let you try them on. There are no clear labels, no filters, no indicators — you just tap and hope. It’s hit-or-miss, and that makes it frustrating.
I used it to buy a pair of Mother Jeans via Free People. The “Try It On” icon just happened to be there when I went looking for this specific pair of pants. It was luck, not tech skill, that put us together.
It feels more like a promising tech demo than a reliable everyday feature.
GlanceAI vs. Google AI: What’s the difference?
GlanceAI isn’t perfect. Neither is Google. But they’re both big steps forward in making online shopping better.Glance is more fun and styled. Google is more powerful and precise. Both are worth a try if you’re tired of return labels and surprise crop tops.
They’re different tools solving different parts of the same problem. Ideally, they’ll converge.
Bonus tools to try
These two aren’t alone. A few other tools in my smart shopping stack:
Beni: A browser extension that finds secondhand versions of what you’re shopping for. That $180 blazer might be $60 on Poshmark.
Croissant: See your item’s resale value before you buy it. A $250 bag? Croissant might tell you it’ll resell for $100.
Jennifer Jolly is an Emmy Award-winning consumer tech columnist and on-air contributor for “The Today Show.” The views and opinions expressed in this column are the author’s and do not necessarily reflect those of USA TODAY. Contact her via Techish.com or @JennJolly on Instagram.
