Gap Inc. Launches Conversational Shopping Agents at Old Navy and Banana Republic, Taps Alta and Daydream for AI Discovery
Thirty years after gap.com, Gap Inc. unveiled in-house conversational shopping agents and partnerships with Alta Daily and Daydream. We explain its step-by-step move from search to conversation, the consumer trust risks, and the product data e-commerce brands need.
Key Takeaways
- On October 5, 2026, Gap Inc. marked 30 years since gap.com by unveiling AI-powered shopping experiences. Old Navy and Banana Republic are adding conversational shopping agents to their websites and apps, the Gap brand is partnering with the outside app Alta Daily, and all of the company's brands can be discovered on the AI fashion search platform Daydream
- Gap Inc. positions these tools as augmenting search boxes, filters and product grids rather than replacing them. It now runs several entry points in parallel: its own conversational agents, outside styling AI, and purchasing on Google Gemini, which it announced in March
- Consumer trust has not caught up, and one survey found that 45% of purchases shoppers regretted making on AI advice were apparel and footwear. E-commerce brands should first build product data that can respond to shopper intent and a way to measure results by entry point
Thirty years after gap.com, conversation moves in next to the search box
Starting Monday, customers can get recommendations from the Alta Daily and Daydream platforms. Banana Republic and Old Navy are also launching conversational shopping agents.
www.retaildive.comIn 1996, Gap was among the early American fashion retailers to open an e-commerce site. Exactly 30 years later, on October 5, Gap Inc. unveiled new AI-powered shopping experiences at its SF Tech Week kickoff in San Francisco. The announcement came from Chief Technology Officer Sven Gerjets.
Gap Inc.'s press release describes the new experiences as "augmenting more traditional e-commerce tools like search boxes, filters and product grids." That framing, augmenting rather than replacing, is the key to reading the announcement.
"Thirty years ago, we launched gap.com, revolutionizing the way customers interacted with our brands, and today AI is creating a new opportunity to rethink how people shop for fashion," Gerjets said. The aim, he added, is to connect discovery, inspiration and ultimately action in a more frictionless way.
The launch has three parts: conversational agents on the Old Navy and Banana Republic websites and apps, a partnership between the Gap brand and the AI styling app Alta Daily, and the availability of every Gap Inc. brand on the AI fashion discovery platform Daydream. According to Retail Dive, recommendations from Alta and Daydream became available on October 5, the day of the announcement.
Different entry points for different brands: in-house agents and outside platforms
What stands out is that each brand gets a different entry point. Gap Inc. runs four brands, but it did not roll the same AI feature out to all of them at once.
| Entry point | Brands | What shoppers can do | Operated by |
|---|---|---|---|
| Conversational shopping agents | Old Navy, Banana Republic | Describe what they want in natural language and get product ideas and recommendations | Gap Inc. (own websites and apps) |
| Alta Daily | Gap | Get outfit suggestions featuring Gap products based on their wardrobe and style, and try them on an avatar | Alta (outside app) |
| Daydream | Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy, Athleta | Search in everyday language and discover relevant products | Daydream (outside platform) |
| Google AI Mode and Gemini app (announced March 2026) | Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy, Athleta | Find products inside AI and complete purchases via UCP |
Old Navy and Banana Republic: no more translating into keywords
Only Old Navy and Banana Republic are getting in-house conversational agents. Shoppers describe what they want in natural language and receive relevant product ideas and recommendations.
The press release frames the goal as no longer "requiring customers to translate what they want into keywords, categories and filters." Picture a shopper looking for "something polished but not too formal for a friend's wedding next month." On a conventional site, that mental image has to be broken down into filters such as "dress," "navy" and "size M" before it leads to products. A conversational agent takes that breakdown off the shopper's hands.
Many details remain undisclosed. Which AI models or outside vendors power the agents, whether shoppers can add to cart or check out inside the conversation, and whether the agents will be offered outside the U.S. are all undisclosed. The announcement focuses squarely on discovery.
Alta Daily: starting from the closet and an avatar
Alta Daily, the Gap brand's partner, is an AI styling app founded by Jenny Wang. Users photograph clothes they already own to build a digital closet, then get daily outfit suggestions based on variables such as their schedule, budget and the weather forecast. Suggestions can draw on both the user's wardrobe and brands' assortments.
When Menlo Ventures led Alta's $11 million seed round in June 2025, it said users were generating more than 270,000 outfits a day two months after launch, and that Alta had partnered with more than 4,000 brands. Under the new arrangement, users can turn their personal style and inspiration into looks featuring Gap products and try them on their Alta avatar.
Daydream: fashion-specific search in natural language
Daydream is an AI fashion discovery platform led by Julie Bornstein, who previously held senior roles at Nordstrom, Sephora and Stitch Fix. According to TechCrunch, it raised a $50 million seed round in 2024 and opened its chat-based search to the public in June 2025. At that launch it listed more than 8,000 brands; clicking an item sent shoppers to the merchant's site to buy, and Daydream took a percentage of each sale.
All Gap Inc. brands, including Gap, Banana Republic, Old Navy and Athleta, are available on Daydream. For Gap Inc., this places products in an outside search destination where fashion-minded shoppers gather, before they ever reach a company site. Commercial terms between Gap Inc. and Alta or Daydream, including commissions, are undisclosed.
How this relates to the Gemini deal in March
This is not Gap Inc.'s first move to put products inside outside AI. In March 2026, the company adopted Google's UCP (Universal Commerce Protocol, a framework that lets shoppers complete purchases inside AI) and announced that all four brands would become purchasable in Google's AI Mode and the Gemini app.
Laid side by side, each entry point plays a distinct role: purchasing in general-purpose Gemini, discovery and styling in fashion-specific Alta and Daydream, and conversational product search on Gap Inc.'s own sites. When the press release closes by saying the company "continues to explore agentic commerce and new ways to meet customers wherever they choose to shop," it reads as a statement that this spread is deliberate.
Why not replace search outright
Instead of swapping the search box for conversation, Gap Inc. is placing the two side by side. Both recent results and consumer sentiment help explain that caution.
In fiscal second-quarter 2026 results (quarter ended August 1), Gap Inc.'s net sales fell 2% year over year to $3.7 billion. Online sales declined 1% but still made up 35% of total net sales. The Gap brand posted another quarter of double-digit comparable sales growth, while Old Navy struggled, and the company announced a new Old Navy CEO the same day. Abruptly taking away familiar search and filters from a channel that accounts for more than a third of sales would risk more than it gains.
Gerjets himself acknowledges that shoppers are wary of AI-assisted shopping. "AI should make shopping easier and more intuitive, not add complexity or take choice away from the customer," he told Retail Dive by email. The technology, he said, should support the relationship customers have with Gap Inc.'s brands, not replace it.
Consumer trust has not caught up
It is too early to judge by the promoters' words alone. Gap Inc. has not shared any usage or conversion targets for how often conversational shopping will be used or how often it will lead to purchases.
Outside research points to caution. A SmartCustomer survey of nearly 1,200 U.S. consumers, reported by Retail Dive, found that 76% had used AI to make purchases in the past year, yet 89% do not fully trust AI recommendations. A third of respondents had made a purchase they regretted based on an AI recommendation, and apparel and footwear accounted for 45% of those. Apparel, where fit and fabric are hard to judge through a screen, is a category where AI recommendations are especially prone to miss.
In-house agents carry a risk of their own. A Synchrony and Oxford Economics survey of 2,000 U.S. consumers, covered by CX Dive, found that more than half would trust an AI shopping agent from a brand they already deal with. But three-quarters said they would shop less or stop shopping with a brand after its AI recommended a poor product.
Those two findings are two sides of the same coin. A brand's own agent can lean on existing trust to win usage, but every bad recommendation lands directly on the brand. When Alta or Daydream misses, the shopper's frustration goes to the platform first. Splitting the entry points and limiting in-house agents to two brands at the start also makes sense as a way of distributing that risk.
What e-commerce brands can take from this
Retailers far smaller than Gap Inc. can still learn from this design.
The most important lesson concerns the product data that conversation depends on. When shoppers search with words like "wedding," "rainy day" or "under $100," AI draws on more than category and color attributes. If product data lacks occasion, season, fabric characteristics and pairing suggestions, neither a brand's own agent nor an outside AI can return products that match the shopper's intent. The more conversational entry points there are, the more the way product data is written matters as much as the assortment itself.
How Gap Inc. divides its entry points is also instructive. Adding a conversational agent to your own site, listing products on a fashion-specific outside platform and supporting general-purpose AI such as Gemini or ChatGPT are not either-or choices. Varying the mix by brand positioning and customer base, as Gap Inc. does, can be applied by single-brand retailers at the product-category level.
Finally, measurement. Anyone adding a conversational entry point needs to track conversion rate, average order value and return rate separately against traditional search. As the SmartCustomer survey shows, bad recommendations surface later as returns and distrust. Gap Inc. has not disclosed its success metrics either. Being able to verify results in-house is a prerequisite for launching.
Conclusion
Gap Inc.'s announcement does not swap the 30-year-old shopping format of search, filters and product grids for conversation in one move. It splits entry points across its own conversational agents, outside fashion AI in Alta and Daydream, and purchasing on Gemini, and increases the weight of conversation step by step.
The next things to watch are whether the Old Navy and Banana Republic agents take on purchasing, and when and with what numbers Gap Inc. reports results from conversational channels. The press release looks ahead to AI that moves "beyond recommendation toward experiences that can better understand customer needs and help act on their behalf." Whether Gap Inc. gets there depends on how much customer trust it can build through these entry points first.
