How are Sports Brands Actually Using AI? Four examples that go beyond the hype

We’re not going to sugar coat it; AI is moving faster than most of us can keep up with, and we struggle to remember a day where we didn’t have an email from a platform trying to sell us a new AI feature. But when you’re running a brand, the question isn’t whether to use AI, it’s where it’ll make a difference to your business goals. 

When we put together our book Life Goals, the examples of brands using AI weren’t the most flashy. Most of them were just working with it in the background, fixing problems that most fashion brands have been wrestling for years. 

Here’s where we’ve seen AI earn it’s keep and what you can take from each example. 

Returns: What Merrell Got Right

Returns are one of the most expensive headaches in fashion ecommerce. Working with Returnalyze, Merrell used AI-driven insights to understand why products were coming back, from product descriptions to fit issues to purchase intent and repeat behaviour. By connecting return data with product and customer information, the team could see which styles, categories, and SKUs had the highest return rates, and more importantly, they could see why. 

That led to deliberate changes to product pages, sizing guidance and inventory decisions. Return rates on key product lines dropped by up to 15% (and in one case, by as much as 25%). It also helped Merrell win back customers who had previously returned items, with more accurate recommendations for their next purchase. 

For sports and fitness brands, where fit of items is everything, return data could be the most useful dataset you’re not capitalising on - and AI could be the route to help you get there. 

Personalisation: Castore

Castore rebuilt its customer marketing around Klaviyo’s AI, bringing data from multiple sources together to understand what each customer actually wants. That means product recommendations and follow-ups that match each person’s behaviour, not just one blanket message sent to everyone and hoping for the best. Castore reported higher conversion rates and repeat purchase rates compared with its traditional automated journeys. 

What we love is the restraint. Castore didn’t use AI to automate creativity. It used it to understand customers better, so the marketing team’s work lands with the right people. Start with what already works, then use data to make it sharper. 

Onsite Search: O’Neill

O’Neill put Nosto’s Personalised Search to the test. It ran an A/B test across its online stores in the UK, Germany, the Netherlands and France. Version A followed the usual approach, putting in-season, full-price products first. Version B ranked products by what actually sold, based on sales per view and conversions. The team adjusted the weighting so low-traffic products with a handful of sales didn’t skew the results. 

Conversions rose 43% in the UK, 21% in Germany and the Netherlands, and 15% in France. 

What you want to sell and what customers want to buy are often two different things. Letting the data decide, market by market, can make a big difference. 

Stock and Stores: Decathlon

Decathlon shows what AI can do for brands selling online and in store. In several European markets, RFID-enabled robots (using radio tags on products) scan stores overnight, tracking up to 93,000 products in three and a half hours. That’s improved on-shelf availability by around 5% compared with standard stores. 

Behind the scenes, predictive inventory and AI-powered logistics keep online and in-store stock in sync. So when a customer checks stock online before visiting, the product is actually there. 

It frees staff to spend more time helping customers too. Decathlon is also testing smart mirrors that identify items and suggest products that go with them. 

If your website says something is in stock, it needs to be. AI is making that promise much easier to keep. 

AI is Also Changing How Shoppers Find You

We couldn’t write this article without acknowledging AI Discovery. More and more shoppers are asking AI tools what to buy and where to buy from, and that affects which brands ultimately get recommended. 

While researching Life Goals, we found that almost all the content Google’s AI Mode cited for “best barefoot trainers” came from affiliate sites. Vivobarefoot, which invests heavily in content partners, featured prominently. 

It’s a big part of why AI discovery has become one of our biggest focuses as an agency. We are spending a lot of time working out how these tools decide what to recommend, and how brands can earn a place in those answers, in order to help our clients appear in the new ways that shoppers are searching and discovering brands.

Your AI strategy isn’t only about the tools you use. It’s also about making sure you’re visible when AI is doing the recommending. (We’ve written another article about this which you can read here).

Our Take

AI is at its best when customers don’t notice it, they just notice that the experience is better. None of the brands in this article set out to “do AI”. They each had a real commercial problem and used AI to help solve their issues and streamline their processes. 

That’s the part we’d encourage you to be inspired by. Start with the problem that’s costing you the most right now. That might be margin lost to returns, or customers leaving a search page that doesn’t show them anything they want. Then ask whether AI can help you see that problem more clearly or fix it faster. You don’t need big transformation projects to get going. Most of these examples started with data the brands already had and one well-run test. 

A good (but admittedly ‘unsexy’) place to start might be figuring out how your brand shows up in AI searches. Ensure the correct foundations are in place, so your brand is the first to feature when a shopper is browsing using their favourite LLM. We’re talking clean data signals for enhanced conversions and consent mode, and optimised feeds, including rich titles, descriptions over 500 words, multiple lifestyle images, etc. Get this right, then look at how the tech can enhance your business needs.

Give shoppers every opportunity to find you and keep on coming back.