AI Can Build You a Product Collection in Seconds. It Can’t Make Customers Trust It

The difference comes down to one thing: a human being who knows why to say no.

BY VICTORIA WATTERS, CO-FOUNDER, DRY ATLAS

Illustration: Inc; Photo: Getty Images

On Revolve’s latest earnings call, AI was mentioned more than two dozen times. The message from the fashion retail platform was clear: we’re a technology company now.

It’s a rational response. AI can generate product descriptions, build collections, and personalize online storefronts faster and cheaper than any human team. As players like Revolve and Amazon push deeper into niche categories, the pressure on smaller platforms to compete is intensifying. The efficiency case is real. But efficiency and true curation are at odds. 

The Zero Proof has been curating alcohol alternatives online since 2019, before the category went mainstream and long before Amazon started paying attention. Every product on the platform has been vetted by people who have actually consumed it, evaluated it against the category, and made a deliberate call about whether it belongs.

Trevor Wolfe, their co-founder and chief commercial officer, describes a review process that runs on both hard and soft criteria. “We grade products on quantitative factors—predicted velocities, retail price, margin—alongside more subjective attributes: taste, uniqueness, visual brand aesthetics, and a product’s storytelling ability,” he explains. That standard has also shaped what The Zero Proof refuses. “We’ve turned away products with poor branding, and larger brands that were just trying to check a box by entering the non-alc category. Our curation has always been our differentiator.”

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As non-alcoholic beer exploded and new brands flooded the segment, The Zero Proof didn’t immediately open the floodgates. They spent months tasting before expanding, looking for options that truly stand out on flavor, craft, and consistency. Restraint is the product. It’s what makes a recommendation from The Zero Proof valuable versus one from an AI-based aggregator: someone accountable made a choice, not a ranking system optimizing for click-through.

Goldbelly, the online marketplace for iconic regional foods, operates on the same logic at a different scale. Getting onto the platform is an endorsement. Each year, the company’s founders personally hand-select their 100 Most Beautiful Gifts. Their curation standard has made “Goldbelly-approved” meaningful to both consumers and those competing to earn it. AI can aggregate similar products, but it can’t replicate what it means to be selected by someone with a real point of view.

When platforms get it wrong

When a platform deploys AI to scale curation, the results start drifting from what customers actually need. The “curated” label stays on the product page long after the human judgment behind it has been outsourced.

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