An AI stitch in time...

The face of the wizened tailor — sitting in front of a sewing machine, bent over different fabrics and patterns — is likely to change in some parts of the world soon. A sleek little robot is now being trained to sort cloth, inspect materials for defects, pick up a heavy bolt and place it on a counter, sew garments, check them for flaws, and neatly fold them.

Digital technologies have not only been changing retail but are beginning to impact manufacturing, too. Apparel manufacturing is labour-intensive, but rising labour costs and shortages have led the industry to robots. Robotics and automation have made strides in other sectors, such as automotive manufacturing, healthcare, logistics, and agriculture, but are late entrants in textiles because of the very nature of fabrics. "They curl up, they skew, they stretch, they'll sway in the breeze. Static electricity is a big problem," says Jon Zornow, CEO of California-based Sewbo, the tailoring robot company. "You can't use suction cups. You can't use a vacuum because they're porous. There are just a million little things about fabrics that make them hard to handle with robots," he says.