Last week, Browzwear was excited to attend The Fashion Technology Show (formerly PI Apparel) in New York, one of the fashion world's global centers. Over two busy days, we had hundreds of conversations with design leaders and technologists about where fashion technology is headed.
Unsurprisingly, a major theme of the event was how AI and 3D are being deployed across the product lifecycle as infrastructure that delivers measurable value.
One presentation we'd like to highlight came from Monika Balach-Kinsella, 3D Product Development Lead at JD Sports, who spoke on Day 2 in a session titled "JD Sports is Moving Beyond Traditional AI and 3D."
JD Sports — a global leader in sports fashion — used the session to lay out the challenges that have long defined traditional garment product development:
These aren't new problems for the industry, but they're the ones AI and 3D technology are finally positioned to solve at scale. Tools like virtual sampling and on-demand production are helping brands and manufacturers cut waste, reduce costs, and move faster — without compromising on design quality.
Rather than treating technology as a single silver bullet, JD Sports described a connected stack of tools, each doing a specific job in the workflow:
JD Sports pointed to a purpose-built combination of tools it relies on: Browzwear for 3D visualization and fit validation, Browzwear partner Vizoo for digital fabric creation, and Fashion.Insta for automated pattern making.
That combination reflects what we've seen work best across the industry: Browzwear brings digital garments to life with true-to-life drape, fit, and movement, giving design and merchandising teams the confidence to make decisions before a physical sample is ever cut. A sketch or mood board only tells part of the story — it's in 3D that a garment starts to become real, where drape, movement, and fit reveal whether an idea actually works on the body. Paired with automated pattern making and digital fabric creation, that same digital garment carries forward as the foundation for tech packs, fit approval, and production, connecting creative intent to the finished product from the first concept through to what actually ships.
Why this matters beyond one brand
JD Sports' presentation was a clear example of a pattern we heard across the show floor: the brands seeing real value from AI and 3D aren't chasing a single "AI tool." Instead, they’re building connected ecosystems where each platform handles what it does best, and 3D visualization sits at the center as the bridge between design intent and commercial reality.
For an industry still weighed down by slow, manual, fragmented workflows, that's the real promise of fashion technology in 2026: not replacing the creative process, but finally giving it a fast, connected path to market.
We're grateful to JD Sports and the entire Fashion Technology Show community for an energizing two days, and we're looking forward to continuing these conversations as more brands move from experimentation to execution.