Max Fashion, the value-fashion brand of Dubai-based retail conglomerate Landmark Group, has rolled out an AI-powered virtual try-on feature built on Google Cloud’s Virtual Try-On API, in what the companies describe as one of the first deployments of its kind in the Middle East and North Africa. The service, announced on June 11, is launching first in the UAE ahead of a wider rollout across the brand’s digital platforms.
The feature runs on Google Cloud’s AI infrastructure and uses generative AI vision models delivered through the Gemini Enterprise platform. Shoppers browsing Max’s online store can see realistic previews of how garments drape, fit and move on different body types, rather than relying on product photography and size charts alone.
The deployment targets one of online fashion’s most persistent problems: fit uncertainty. Shoppers who cannot judge how an item will look on them are more likely to abandon a purchase — or order multiple sizes and send back what doesn’t fit, a costly habit for retailers. Max’s bet is that a realistic digital preview can close part of the gap between browsing on a phone and standing in a fitting room.
“Fashion retail is evolving quickly, and customers today expect digital experiences that are not only convenient, but also intelligent, personal and useful,” said Hani Weiss, chief executive officer of Max Fashion, in the announcement. The launch, he said, “helps address real purchase barriers, particularly around fit and confidence, while allowing us to create a richer and more engaging shopping journey.”
Bala Subramaniam, the brand’s senior vice president and head of omnichannel, said the goal is to give a customer browsing on a phone “the same confidence as one standing in our fitting room.”
For Google Cloud, the rollout is a regional showcase for its retail-focused AI products. “By integrating our Virtual Try-On API, Max is disrupting the traditional retail parameters in the MENA region,” said Ziad Jammal, general manager for Google Cloud in the UAE, Levant and North Africa, describing AI-driven personalization as a core business imperative for retailers.
Virtual try-on has become one of the more visible consumer applications of generative AI. Google first built apparel try-on tools into its consumer shopping products before offering the underlying capability to retailers as a cloud API, while players from Amazon to Snap have experimented with AR- and AI-based fitting tools of their own. Accurately rendering how fabric behaves on a real body — not just pasting a garment onto a photo — is the technical hurdle these newer generative models are meant to clear.
Max, one of the region’s largest value-fashion retailers, gives the technology an unusually mainstream test bed: the brand serves high-volume shoppers across the Gulf rather than a luxury niche. Whether virtual try-on meaningfully reduces return rates at scale remains an open question across the industry, but the UAE launch will offer one of the first regional answers — and, if it works, a template the rest of MENA retail is likely to follow.
