US Softlines Retail "AI ROI: Why It's Real" Sole

Research evidence excerpt

US Softlines Retail "AI ROI: Why It's Real" Sole

Global Research

25 May 2026ab

US Softlines Retail Equities

AmericasAI ROI: Why It's Real

Retailers, Specialty

Jay Sole

We remain very bullish on Softlines and AI is a main reason: Analyst

We believe the US consumer spending environment for apparel and footwear is stronger jay.sole@ubs.com

than the market realizes (link). In addition, we believe AI will accelerate GDP growth +1-212-713 3559

fueling increased apparel & footwear spending. Furthermore, and more importantly, we Mauricio Serna, CFA

see AI helping Softline companies boost sales and margins more than the market is Analyst

anticipating. Our previous work showed Softline companies are already taking AI very mauricio.serna@ubs.com

seriously (link) and AI is likely already having a positive impact on the industry's financial +1-212-713 9028

performance (link). Nevertheless, our conversations with investors have suggested many Natalie Koltermann

still doubt Softline companies are generating meaningful ROI from their AI investments. Associate Analyst

In this report, we provide 10 detailed examples of how Softline companies are using AI natalie.koltermann@ubs.com

to improve their financial performance. +1-212-713 4229

Aditya Kulkarni

Firms are achieving solid ROI deploying AI across their organizations: Associate Analyst

The important insight from this work is the transformative power of AI comes from aditya.kulkarni@ubs.com

+1-212-713 1098

companies applying it across all of their organizations' different functions, rather than

from one "a-ha" moment captured in a single case study. For example, a large, global Serge Severenchuk

brand we studied has 650 business processes clustered in 16 value chains across its Associate Analyst

organization.