Fanatics and OpenAI have rolled out an OpenAI-powered version of the Shop the Look feature across the Fanatics network in time for the fall sports calendar. The upgrade is intended to help fans more easily assemble coordinated, team-appropriate game-day outfits.
Where it’s available and how it works
The OpenAI-enhanced Shop the Look is live on multiple Fanatics sites, including Fanatics.com and the official online stores for the NFL, NBA, MLB and NHL. On product pages, the feature suggests coordinated outfits: when a fan views a team jersey, the system recommends in-stock items that match the team and the intended style.
Technology and data sources
OpenAI models generate recommendations using enriched product data along with team and inventory information. Fanatics’ merchandising rules are applied to keep selections compatible and relevant, and the looks are refreshed daily as catalogs change.
Within Fanatics, ChatGPT Work and Codex are used across several divisions, including Fanatics Corporate, Commerce, Collectibles, and Betting and Gaming.
Development process and results
Using Codex, the OpenAI engineering collaboration and Fanatics’ team rapidly developed custom recommendation tools to enrich product and catalog data, identify compatible merchandise, evaluate suggestions, and generate looks for each product. An initial test on 50 products took less than a day; Fanatics reviewed the generated looks, provided feedback, and after a few days of iteration approved a minimum viable product within the same week.
After scaling the approach and testing recommendations across roughly 30,000 MLB products, the OpenAI-powered Shop the Look achieved about 10% higher engagement than the previous Shop the Look experience.
Why this matters
The new feature aims to shorten discovery time and increase the likelihood that shoppers can find complete, cohesive outfits by combining real-time inventory awareness with merchandising rules. For Fanatics, higher engagement can translate directly into improved commercial performance during seasonal peaks such as the fall sports schedule.
Additional notes
The announcement also underlines that Fanatics’ collaboration with OpenAI extends beyond this single feature: OpenAI technologies are already in use across multiple areas of the platform to support both internal operations and customer-facing services.
