Automation’s shortcomings
Clothing designers expect to see further advances in automation in the near future, but we are some way short of seeing an all-AI produced garment, even if consumers were willing to accept such a product.
Organiser of the Techtextil and Texprocess exhibitions, Messe Frankfurt, recently hosted a preview to highlight what visitors can look forward to from the 2026 editions of the events. Both shows will take place concurrently in Frankfurt from April 21-24.
The centrepiece of the preview event was a panel discussion. Participants were Messe Frankfurt’s vice-president for textile industry events, Olaf Schmidt, the managing director of industry association VDMA, Elgar Straub, adidas director Walter Wählt, and the general manager of Portugal-based textile research institute CITEVE, António Braz Costa.
Panel members agreed that innovation needs to be the textile industry’s response to economic uncertainty, geopolitical tensions and continued restraint in investment. They also agreed that innovation can accelerate the transformation of the textile sector and suggested that many of the new ideas on display at Techtextil and Texprocess in April will focus on artificial intelligence (AI), sustainable materials and new production models.
Mind the gap
However, Mr Wählt, the senior director of advanced creation at adidas, says that his experience of incorporating new technologies into garment design at the sportswear company has left him in no doubt that gaps remain. He says innovation usually comes in because there is a problem that the industry wants to solve. Digital design at the moment, he insists, consists of digital and manual processes. This is to say that garment manufacturers are now doing digitally some of the things they used to do manually, but he says the process as a whole is still a mix of digital and manual.
“The next step will be automation, with connections between systems,” he adds. “Now when you scan a garment or present a pattern, the system doesn’t know if it is for a sleeve, a front piece or a back piece. You have to position the pieces manually so that the system can stitch the garment. This is ridiculous.
Separation issues
He insists that automating these processes further is something that the industry is demanding. He hopes it will be “one of the next steps” and that evidence of progress will be on show at the exhibitions in Frankfurt in April.
He also calls for greater automation in systems for separating different materials from garments when they go for recycling. But here, he explains, it is important to begin at the design stage. “We must always start with design when we talk about sustainability and circularity,” he says. “It is important to have recommendations about which materials you should use so that you can make a circular garment. At the moment, too many garments are going into landfill as waste just because the garment is made from cotton, for example, but the thread the manufacturer decided to use was polyamide.”
He is aware of ideas for automating the separation of materials. “When you talk to suppliers about these problems, they say that they have something in the pipeline but that it’s not ready for the market yet. I hope to see some solutions for this at Techtextil and Texprocess. I will be interested to hear what suppliers say.”
First steps
The senior director of advanced creation at adidas says he understands the resistance of some consumers towards having finished products made entirely by AI and automation tools.
He explains that some of his design and marketing colleagues at adidas are enthusiastic users of AI. “They are able to be very creative with it,” he says, “and reach decisions on design much faster than they could before. But you cannot create a pattern with AI. AI for the whole engineering part of creating a product that you can manufacture, and that a customer will be happy to wear, does not yet exist.”
He says he is hopeful of seeing “the first steps in that direction” too at Texprocess and Techtextil 2026. He has come across “some promising, small companies” that are already working on extending the use of AI in finished product manufacturing, but he repeats that the technology is of limited use to teams like his. “At the moment AI is just a visual tool, with which designers and marketing teams can go crazy,” he continues, although he accepts the decision-making process about what a garment will look like can be much faster as a result. “But we still have to do the engineering part without AI.”
Difficult balance
He would like to see the industry resolve a number of basic shortcomings in the way it uses technology. Companies and systems use a variety of file formats, for example. Size and fit are also areas in need of improvement. “Every company has its own definitions for size, for bodies, for fit. This is why customers are sure about the size they have to order from brands they know, but if they buy from another brand, they are not sure and, in the worst case, they might order three different sizes to see which fits best. A standard for this is completely missing in the industry.”
When Sportstextiles asks Mr Wählt if he has any sympathy for consumers who are unenthusiastic about buying products designed and manufactured by AI and robots, and what he thinks companies like adidas can do to strike the right balance, his response is clear. He says: “Personally, I would not like to have a garment that was completely made by AI, with humans taking none of the decisions, especially about fit and how it was engineered. There is no label at the moment that certifies that a garment was made by humans, but it is an interesting topic.”
Automation is speeding up design tasks, but making garments still requires a combination of digital and manual processes. Credit: adidas
