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- Artificial intelligence can now detect whether a secondhand luxury item is fake.
- Tech company Entrupy says its device can authenticate handbags from brands like Louis Vuitton and Chanel.
- The AI authenticator is gaining renewed interest as companies seek to cash in on the AI hype.
Have you wondered if that Chanel bag you bought from a vintage reseller was legit? You may now be able to know for sure thanks to artificial intelligence.
Entrupy is a technology service that uses AI to authenticate designer handbags and sneakers in the resale market to ensure that customers are buying the real thing.
Since Entrupy was founded in 2012, the company says that its AI technology has been used by hundreds of vintage resellers as of December 2020, according to its website. And interest in the AI tool may continue to grow as businesses seek to cash in on the AI hype.
Currently only available to resellers of luxury goods, Entrupy claims its tool can authenticate products from luxury brands like Balenciaga, Burberry, Gucci, and Louis Vuitton. Using the AI could be a way for luxury resellers to build trust with their customers who may be wary of buying products that aren't real.
"The whole point of doing this is to add trust and make it verifiable as a third party," Vidyuth Srinivasan, the cofounder and CEO of Entrupy, told Elle in a recent interview. "It's the consumer having the certainty that this is not just [one] person saying that it's authentic, there's also a third party that's not invested in the transaction, certifying it."
Entrupy claims it has a 99.1% accuracy rate
The renewed interest in the AI-service comes as of last October, when TikTok announced its partnership with Entrupy to identify whether products on its new e-commerce platform TikTok Shop are fake. The partnership comes at a time when generative AI tools like OpenAI's ChatGPT have taken the world by storm.
To use the AI-powered authenticator, users are prompted to take photos of the product from every possible angle after inserting their smartphone into Entrupy's hardware device. The device has microscopic lens that the company claims can magnify the phone camera to take granular photos of features like a product's designer plaque and material.
The photos are then cross-referenced with a database of millions of pictures of authentic inventory using an AI algorithm. Within minutes, Entrupy can make a verdict on whether the product is real or not, which it claims has a 99.1% accuracy rate, according to its website. The company generates an official certificate that retailers can display if the product is deemed authentic.
It can currently only authenticate major brands
Still, the product isn't perfect: Entrupy's CEO told Elle that it can only authenticate accessories from major brands because those are the ones most prone to being fraudulent.
Entrupy didn't immediately respond to Business Insider's request for comment.
The AI-powered authenticator isn't the only AI hardware device getting attention this year.
In September, Meta launched the second version of its Ray-Ban Meta smart glasses that users can speak to through a built-in AI assistant. Two months later, Humane.ai, an AI startup, launched its AI pin — which the company says can project information onto a user's palm through light — to the market.