It’s hard to find an aspect of modern life in respect of which the impact of AI is not being earnestly debated at the moment. Whilst in many cases the talk is about AI creating deep fakes, the idea that it could be used to detect them in the fashion industry is interesting.

The effectiveness of AI systems of course depends on how well they are “trained”. Brand owners are certainly well placed to do that as regards their own products, and anything that helps stamp out counterfeits can only be a good thing.

However, one thought that occurs is the risks of getting it wrong. Any delegated decision-making about infringement introduces risk, and depending on how the systems are used they could potentially throw up some false positives – for example if someone sells an authentic product but inadvertently uses an image of a fake taken from the internet. Brands might reasonably take the view that the ends justify the means, but it will be interesting to see if these technologies work their way through to evidence in litigation.