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Hello readers,
Welcome to the AI For All newsletter! Today, we’re talking the how AI is getting into luxury resale, helping to eliminate accidents at construction sites, and more.
AI in Action: Picking out a price
At The RealReal’s New Jersey warehouse, luxury resale meets artificial intelligence, The Wall Street Journal reports. The company has rolled out an AI tool called Athena to streamline item authentication, pricing, and product descriptions—tasks previously done entirely by humans. Athena helps speed up the time it takes to list products for sale and reduces the company’s need to expand headcount as inventory grows. As of late 2024, Athena was processing over a quarter of incoming items, with plans to expand its reach to higher-end goods in 2025.
The AI system leverages The RealReal’s massive internal dataset to assess counterfeiting risk, recommend pricing, and assist in determining authenticity. It can even route low-risk items, like designer jeans, directly to sale without human review. High-value goods, like Hermès Birkins, still require hands-on checks from experienced authenticators who rely on both tech (like microscopes and X-rays) and intuition (touch, smell, and detailed inspection) to validate items.
By reducing the time from dock to listing—from 14 days down to a target of 7—Athena is designed to boost seller satisfaction and inventory turnover. Though The RealReal hasn’t yet shared cost-savings figures, analysts believe the impact could be meaningful, particularly in shaving off variable labor costs tied to product intake.
In essence, Athena signals a shift toward semi-automated luxury resale—blending data, sensors, and human judgment to keep pace with growing demand and stay competitive in a labor-intensive business.
🔥 Rapid Fire
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AI in HR? It’s happening now.
Deel's free 2026 trends report cuts through all the hype and lays out what HR teams can really expect in 2026. You’ll learn about the shifts happening now, the skill gaps you can't ignore, and resilience strategies that aren't just buzzwords. Plus you’ll get a practical toolkit that helps you implement it all without another costly and time-consuming transformation project.
📖 What We’re Reading
While preventing common safety events is important, a greater challenge lies in adapting to unique hazards on a case-by-case basis, especially within employee-wide systems. Programmed safety alerts are only effective for repeatable instances, leaving a critical gap. The core difficulties are adapting training for new or dynamic situations and keeping teams vigilant against risks that are not yet known or visible.
