Fanatics Debuts 'Shop the Look' AI Feature Built With OpenAI's Codex

Fanatics launched "Shop the Look," an AI-powered feature built with OpenAI's Codex that suggests coordinated outfits on product pages, CNBC reported. Justin Tsai, chief product officer for Fanatics Commerce, said views of recommended items rose 10% after the rollout.

How Fanatics Built Shop the Look With Codex

Fanatics offers more than 1.5 million unique SKUs, and Fanatics Commerce manufactures more than 45 million items a year sold in more than 180 countries. Tsai said customers' shopping sessions routinely ran over 30 minutes on average, and that time compounded as Fanatics released upwards of a thousand new products each week.

"One problem we just kept seeing was that our customers come to our sites, and we operate hundreds of these sites … their challenges are that they're always trying to look through our very large catalog to figure out what they can buy," Tsai said.

"Shop the Look" matches items with other in-stock products based on team and intended style, suggesting a hat, socks and other accessories to go with a jersey. Tsai said photo shoots and stylized outfits have lead times that do not always work with Fanatics' product pool or quickly released items like championship shirts and hats, and that random suggestions fail sports fans. "Nobody who is a Los Angeles Dodgers fan wants to be matched with a San Francisco Giants item … team and player alignment is extremely important in our world," he said.

Rosemary DeArago, head of industry GTM at OpenAI, said the personalization issue in retail "is an age-old problem." "In the past we were trying to stitch together something that would be good to show a customer," DeArago said. "With AI, you can do more deterministic matching to do personalization in this next-level way." OpenAI has been experimenting with shopping tools for ChatGPT since the chatbot's launch, including a feature last fall that let users buy merchants' products directly within ChatGPT, and it is ending the Instant Checkout effort while working directly with retailers on dedicated apps within ChatGPT, according to CNBC reporting.

Fanatics' Scale Behind the Feature

Fanatics is a privately held global digital sports platform spanning licensed merchandise, trading cards, sports betting, prediction markets, live events, advertising and a co-branded American Express credit card, according to akta.pro company records. The same records list 100M+ reachable fans, 900+ sports properties and 6,000+ athlete and celebrity relationships, with a revenue estimate of $5 billion+ and a valuation estimate of $25 billion+.

Fanatics' Recent Retail and Licensing Moves

Fanatics and Angelo Baque released a limited-edition New York Knicks Championship Varsity Jacket in October 2026, a 100% suede jacket with leather accents and embroidery that retailed for $1,500 across a run of 100 hand-numbered units, Hypebeast reported. Fanatics said in October 2026 it will open a store at Centennial Yards in Atlanta in 2027 as part of a deal with the Hawks that transfers the team's in-venue and e-commerce business, with HawksShop.com launching October 19, Sports Business Journal reported. Fanatics opened an NFL Shop pop-up on London's Oxford Street for the three 2026 NFL London games, running from October 1 to 19, Retail Technology Innovation Hub reported.

Fanatics Commerce Revenue Outlook

Michael Rubin, Fanatics founder and CEO, told CNBC's "Squawk Box" earlier in October 2026 that the company's commerce business will exceed $7 billion in revenue this year, compared with roughly $5.5 billion for its collectibles business, which includes Topps trading cards.