As turnaround efforts proceed to fix Nike’s digital sales and general revenue trajectory in 2025, the sportswear and apparel giant’s artificial intelligence strategy intersects with many parts of its business — including how Nike is using AI to improve customer service, represent its brand and optimize its products.
Nike made important moves with AI for years, including acquisitions and applying it to design processes. However, the company has been through a series of leadership transitions over the past year. Changes have included the appointment of Elliott Hill as Nike’s CEO in 2024, as well as the departure of Jason Loveland, who oversaw AI and machine learning, and the retirement of John Hoke, who served as Nike’s chief innovation officer.
Now, Nike is regaining some lost momentum. During its fiscal Q1 2026 ended Aug. 31, the retailer and brand behind Jordan sneakers, Major League Baseball jerseys and much more grew revenue year over year for the first time since its fiscal Q3 2024. As Hill looks to continue Nike’s rebound story, this is how AI could play key roles.
How Nike is using AI for customer experience
In August, Muge Erdirik Dogan, the executive vice president and chief technology officer at Nike, offered a glimpse at how AI factors into Nike’s in-app search experience and personalized recommendations. Her team launched an experience dubbed NikeAI Beta for all iOS Nike App users in the U.S.
“It’s a meaningful shift in how we connect our athletes with products that fit their needs, moments, and goals,” Dogan wrote on LinkedIn. “NikeAI meets our consumers where they are at, bringing the power of conversation to the Nike App.”
She cited contextualized examples such as “running shoes for a race, gear for your team, or products in your favorite color, size, even ones not in our standard filters,” as the types of requests that NikeAI was built to handle.
“NikeAI understands our consumer’s shopping intent, built by using best-in-class foundational models and fine-tuned by domain experts who understand Nike’s DNA,” she explained. “It’s simple, intuitive, and built for real moments in real lives.”
Dogan, who came to Nike in 2023 after 16 years at Amazon, called early signs from the experience’s reception “exciting.”
Reaching shoppers with AI-powered ads
In South Korea, the popular multipurpose online platform Naver welcomed Nike as an early brand to use its CLOVA for AD experience, which relies on Naver’s HyperCLOVA X large language model (LLM). The generative AI advertising product acts as a virtual brand ambassador to engage with app users when they search for relevant products on Naver.
Naver calls its chatbot-style experience “BrandChat.” Responses are engineered to reflect guidelines and perspectives from a given brand, such as Nike, with personalized product suggestions geared toward driving purchases.
AI for product design at Nike
One of Nike’s flashiest displays of AI use came during the 2024 Olympics in Paris. There, Nike held an exhibition under the name “Art of Victory” to show off shoe designs that were created with the help of AI.
Prototypes in the exhibition were made for 13 athletes who worked with Nike, coming from track, soccer, basketball and tennis. Nike called the project A.I.R. — or Athlete Imagined Revolution. It described A.I.R. as a “co-creation process,” incorporating feedback loops and athlete-generated preferences. Those celebrity athletes, including Victor Wembanyama, Sha’Carri Richardson and Kylian Mbappé, offered input to shape the final outcomes for the footwear as Nike designers used their own expertise to interpret AI-envisioned concepts.
Nike web sales by year
Nike is No. 13 in the Top 2000. The database is Digital Commerce 360’s ranking of the largest North American online retailers by their annual ecommerce sales. In the database, Nike is the highest-ranking Apparel & Accessories retailer. Digital Commerce 360 projects that Nike online sales in 2025 will reach $8.15 billion.
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