- Premium Content It takes our newsroom weeks - if not months - to investigate and produce stories for our premium content. You can’t find them anywhere else.
Samreen Ahmad · · 5 min readGlance AI wants to style you – and power InMobi’s $10b IPO
It’s a Friday morning, but the Glance office in Bengaluru is buzzing with energy.
COO Piyush Shah had posted a LinkedIn photo of the company’s co-founder and CEO, Naveen Tewari. But just minutes later, Tewari is seated in a meeting room, dressed sharply in a crisp blue shirt and tailored trousers – a sharp contrast to the streetwear look he sported in the photo.
Photo credit: InMobi
Tewari, who is also the co-founder and CEO of InMobi – which became India’s first ever unicorn in 2011 – wasn’t in the photo at all, he tells Tech in Asia. Instead, it was a digital version of him created by Glance AI, a genAI-based commerce platform that InMobi and Glance have quietly built over the past 15 months.
Founded in 2019 and based in Singapore, Google-backed Glance is most known for its AI-powered smart lock screen. But Glance AI is the firm’s newest tool, with an ambitious target: disrupting how people shop online.
“Before Glance AI, shopping was about browsing products. After Glance AI, it will be about discovering yourself,” says Tewari.
A lot is riding on the app. Glance AI has launched simultaneously in 140 countries, including in Southeast Asian nations such as Indonesia and Singapore.
But a successful launch would also boost InMobi’s IPO, which is slated to happen “within the next 12 months” at a reported valuation of US$10 billion. The firm has spent “millions of dollars” on Glance AI and is planning to invest another US$200 million.
See also: A bot for your money? Wealthtech firms divided on tapping genAI for investment advice
The question is, can Glance AI fulfill the lofty expectations placed on it?
From browsing to becoming
Glance is betting that the future of shopping will be AI-personalized and customer-centric, not search-led.
Tech in Asia tried the Glance AI app in India. Once a user enters the app, it asks for a selfie or for them to upload a photo. Then, the AI interface asks about the user’s hair length, body shape, preference of style and color, etc.
Once the user feeds the basic information, the app creates a “digital you” within three minutes using generative AI.
After choosing what styles the user prefers – like “Parisian vibe” or “utility style file” – the app then generates outfits for each directly on the digital avatar. It creates 15 fresh looks everyday based on how the user interacts with the different styles.
Built on tech, trained on failure
Stay ahead in Asia’s tech landscape
This is premium content. Subscribe to read the full story.
The Google-backed startup has rolled out the genAI-led tech to flip the commerce experience on its head. A lot is riding on the launch.
We know this is not ideal. ⌛ Sign up in 20 seconds. Cancel anytime.
Our subscriber community includes professionals from these companies:
Stay updated on the go with our mobile app.
Get latest insights with smoother, more personalized experience through TIA mobile app.
