By Steven Levy
Publication Date: 2025-12-05 16:00:00
thought Julie Bornstein It would be a piece of cake to implement her idea for an AI startup. Her digital commerce resume is impeccable: vice president of e-commerce at Nordstrom, COO of startup Stitch Fix, and founder of a personalized shopping platform acquired by Pinterest. Fashion has been her obsession since she was a high school student in Syracuse, inhaling spreads at “Seventeen” and hanging out at local malls. So she felt well-positioned to start a company that enables customers to use AI to discover the perfect clothes.
The reality was much more difficult than she expected. I recently had breakfast with Bornstein and her CTO Maria Belousova to learn more about their startup Daydream, which is being funded with $50 million from VCs like Google Ventures. The conversation took an unexpected turn when the women informed me of the surprising difficulty of translating the magic of AI systems into something that people actually find useful.T
Your story helps explain something. My first newsletter of 2025 announced that it would be the year of…
