From Threat to Opportunity: How Fashion Brands Embrace AI and Digital Remixing

Story, ABLO, and Smiley are redefining IP-based revenue models by leveraging blockchain technology to deepen the engagement lifecycle between IP owners and their fans.

Generative AI has redefined creativity, transforming industries like fashion and design by making production-grade content accessible to anyone with a few prompts. Tools like Midjourney and DALL-E enable endless remixing and rapid idea generation, but this newfound creative freedom and far-reaching distribution of the internet comes at a cost: traditional business models reliant on intellectual property (IP) are under threat. Brands now face declining profit margins and a flood of AI-driven competition, with years of craftsmanship devalued by instant, scalable reproduction.

Yet, what seems like an existential challenge also presents an unprecedented opportunity. In the age of AI, IP is like digital gold. Story’s blockchain-based IP management system bridges the gap between AI’s limitless potential and the need for proper attribution and incentives. By empowering brands to turn fans into collaborators and evangelists, Story transforms every remix into a reinforcement of a brand’s relevance. The result? A new, collaborative economy where IP becomes the engine of growth, not a casualty of disruption. Much like gold serves as the scarce asset of the material economy, IP is the scarce and invaluable asset of today’s intelligence economy.

Intellectual property (IP) is a brand’s most vital asset.

However, the traditional model of IP, where a brand creates designs, trademarks, copyrights them, and controls their usage through restrictive licensing—essentially treating IP as a walled garden—isn't what it used to be. Today, brands are feeling the pinch from multiple angles. Consumer preferences are shifting, competition is intensifying, and disruptive technologies like AI add to the complexity—all contributing to declining year-over-year revenue growth. Traditional models of designing, producing, and marketing apparel alone are insufficient for brands to thrive in this new world. To succeed, brands must adopt new strategies that appeal to consumers seeking more unique and engaging experiences.

This shift is especially critical given today's digital-native consumers who have grown up in a world of remixes, memes, and user-generated content. Social platforms have created a generation that doesn't just want to consume—they want to create, remix, and participate. From TikTok trends to Instagram Reels, the explosion of user-generated content shows that fans crave ways to put their own spin on the content they love. AI further enables this behavior by giving everyone the tools to create high-quality content. This behavior represents both a challenge and an opportunity for brands.

Fan/Creator Collaborations Are Vital—But Hard To Scale

For fashion brands, creator and fan collaborations provide a fresh way to build loyalty and evangelism around the brand’s IP. Instead of relying solely on traditional collections, brands can co-create and turn their fans into creators. Imagine if a creator could take a brand’s IP and remix it by customizing the design, merging it with different elements of the brand to introduce something new and offer it to their audience. Or imagine if a die-hard fan could take the IP, add their personal touch, and make a piece of merchandise for themselves. This approach breathes new life into the brand's IP.

While promising, these collaborations are challenging to master at scale. Traditional IP licensing requires complex negotiations for each partnership, making it virtually impossible to scale creative collaborations beyond a handful of high-profile deals. Each collaboration requires extensive legal work, profit-sharing negotiations, and detailed usage rights discussions—creating a bottleneck that limits most brands to working with just a few major creators.

The solution lies in reimagining how brands can safely open their IP for collaborative remixing while maintaining control—creating a new paradigm where protection and proliferation coexist.

A New Intellectual Property Layer for the Digital Age

This is where blockchain technology, such as Story's IP blockchain, transforms the game. Story introduces IP primitives for the age of AI, letting brands handle complex IP agreements digitally, enabling legally enforceable licenses with a few clicks. On Story, brands can set clear terms and guardrails for how their IP can be used, ensuring protection while enabling creativity. By integrating blockchain for IP management, brands can scale their collaboration with creators exponentially, reaching hundreds or thousands of collaborators.

With this foundation, a new category of creative applications can flourish—ones that turn beloved IPs into building blocks for collaboration. These platforms serve the growing community of creators and fans who want to build upon the IP of brands they love, unlocking a path where both parties benefit economically from this collaboration.

ABLO represents one of the first to realize this vision.

Case Study: ABLO x SmileyWorld

ABLO, a platform that blends AI-driven design tools built on Story's IP blockchain, demonstrates how protected IP can become creative building blocks. Using ABLO, brands and creators can easily collaborate, allowing users to remix IP on top of brand-approved templates and release co-branded products. The platform serves as a central hub where creators can access IP as Lego blocks, working within guardrails set by brands to remix and create new expressions. The platform provides various tools for creators of any skill level to generate unique designs, apply them to apparel, and share them with their audience.

On the other side of ABLO are brands and IP owners like SmileyWorld. Smiley represents one of the world's most iconic IP success stories. Born in 1997, during the dawn of digital communication, Smiley transformed the simple emoticon into a global brand phenomenon and movement. What started as a digital innovation—revolutionizing how people express emotions online—has grown into an iconic brand generating over $500M in annual revenue through partnerships with fashion powerhouses like Karl Lagerfeld and Armani. Through these collaborations, Smiley demonstrated how IP can transcend its original form, evolving from digital expressions to physical products while maintaining its essence of creativity and connection. Smiley has put collaboration at the heart of the brand.

SmileyWorld #1 on Story Blockchain

Now, with ABLO, Smiley is taking its next evolutionary step—moving from traditional brand collaborations to empowering a new generation of digital creators: its fans. On ABLO, a user can remix Smiley-approved IP using ABLO’s AI tools, add that output to a series of different merchandise templates like Champion T-shirts, and publish it for sale. The various designs are published on the Story blockchain, with the terms enshrined on the blockchain. When a T-shirt sells, ABLO distributes royalty payments to original IP holders and other creators who contributed to the design based on the data enshrined on the Story blockchain.

ABLO AI Remix Flow

Additionally, creators can collect NFTs or digital collectibles connected to their physical products, adding an extra layer of potential engagement and fandom beyond just owning the physical goods. As SmileyWorld opens new creative pathways through ABLO, Smiley’s legacy IP empowers its community of fans to extend the brand, fostering a dynamic and interactive IP experience.

ABLO's collaboration with Smiley illustrates how an iconic brand can evolve its IP strategy for the digital age. Rather than restricting their iconic imagery, Smiley has chosen to embrace creative remixing. And because each design is digitally registered on Story's blockchain, these remixes are tracked as derivatives to the original IP.

This approach has transformed Smiley's IP into a dynamic ecosystem where:

• The brand maintains control of the IP while enabling fan creativity
• Creators can legitimately access the iconic IP through a streamlined platform
• Fans become creators, developing deeper connections with the brand
• Each remix strengthens rather than dilutes the original IP

Together, brands working with ABLO building on top of Story’s IP infrastructure democratize access to brand IP while ensuring all creations remain within brand guidelines—solving the scalability challenge that has historically limited creator collaborations.

Leading with IP in the Age of AI

While many brands view AI and digital remixing as threats to their IP, forward-thinking brands like Smiley demonstrate a powerful alternative approach. Just as music streaming platforms transformed music from a product to be protected into a service to be shared, platforms like ABLO are helping fashion brands transform their IP from assets to be guarded into platforms for collaboration. Record labels that ultimately embraced streaming got to participate in a $50+ billion market. We might look back at the fashion industry and see this as its "Spotify moment."

Integrating blockchain IP solutions and creator-driven designs represents a significant shift for the fashion industry. By simplifying IP management, scaling creator partnerships, and enabling unprecedented levels of customization, brands can tap into new revenue models that were previously out of reach. This new model flips the traditional IP paradigm on its head. Fans turn into creators and natural brand evangelists. Each remix reinforces a brand’s relevance. AI becomes a tool for IP proliferation rather than a threat. For brands seeking growth in a challenging market, this technology-enabled IP collaboration model offers a way forward.

The future of fashion lies in collaboration, customization, and technology—where IP becomes the foundation for unlimited creative expression in the age of AI.