dtc-brands
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When the Algorithm Becomes the Stylist: Why AI Doesn't Know Your Favorite Fashion Brand Yet
The Fashion AI Visibility Report, published by the YesPress Newsroom in July 2026, examines how AI assistants like ChatGPT, Gemini, Claude, and Perplexity are becoming the new gateway for fashion discovery. It argues that established retailers currently out-appear high-growth direct-to-consumer brands in AI recommendations, and lays out a five-pillar framework—technical readiness, content authority, digital PR, community presence, and knowledge graph optimization—for DTC brands to close the gap and win early in the customer journey.
Gary Garofalo
Gary Garofalo is the CEO and co-founder of LoudCrowd, an Austin-based software company that turns brand creators and influencers into measurable revenue channels. His platform builds native creator storefronts on a brand's own e-commerce site, aiming to make social commerce as mainstream as third-party tools like LTK or TikTok Shop. A former Deloitte consultant with an economics degree from Wesleyan, Garofalo has led LoudCrowd to work with brands including Gymshark, Boohoo, Kyte Baby and Dolce Vita.
Disco
Disco is a San Francisco-based commerce media network that connects brands to high-intent shoppers through AI-powered, personalized offers across more than 800 digital touchpoints. Founded in 2020 by former Facebook and Affirm operator Conner Sherline, Disco started as a post-purchase ad network that lets independent DTC brands recommend each other to customers at the checkout 'thank you' moment, lowering customer acquisition costs without relying on Big Tech. It has since grown into a broader commerce media layer powering endemic and non-endemic advertising for retailers and B2B2C SaaS companies, built on one of the largest commerce graphs in the market.
Grip
Grip is a Miami-based cold-chain fulfillment and logistics company that helps direct-to-consumer brands ship frozen and refrigerated goods without them arriving as soup. Founded by former ButcherBox logistics leaders, its software picks carriers, packaging, and refrigerant levels in real time based on weather and network conditions, and its warehouses across six states handle the physical fulfillment. The company says it has shipped more than two billion dollars of perishable goods on time for brands like HelloFresh, ButcherBox, and Open Farm.
Donny Salazar
Donny Salazar is the founder and CEO of MasonHub, a software-led fulfillment and logistics company he started in 2018 to give fast-scaling beauty, wellness, and fashion brands the kind of order management and warehousing technology he wished he had earlier in his career. Before MasonHub he spent roughly two decades inside high-growth retail operations - COO of sneaker marketplace Flight Club, SVP of Operations at jewelry brand Chloe+Isabel, and a four-year run at Gilt Groupe where his supply-chain team helped scale revenue from $10M to over $500M. A Stanford MBA who once ran marketing at Revlon, Salazar built MasonHub around a headless, API-driven architecture and a bicoastal warehouse footprint, raising seed funding led by Canvas Ventures.