Titan Watches to harness AI to explore new tech - Generative Adversarial Networks

Designing a new watch is a combination of art, science, and engineering – melding visual appeal, form factors and comfort with reliable precision to create timepieces that are a pleasure to wear and a treasure to preserve.

Titan has been around for decades in this space and has made a mark with brands such as Fastrack, Raga, and Nebula. Recently Titan’s Artificial Intelligence (AI) experts asked themselves: could algorithms learn from our designers and our designs, and serve as capable assistants augmenting our creative teams?

Head Analytics & Insights, Yashwanth Kumar,  answering the question said, “We realized soon that any attempt to quantify what makes a watch appealing, would be incomplete and even miss the essence. We instead decided to explore whether Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) can learn from images of our watch portfolio and create new watch forms.”

A GAN is a Deep Learning neural network that continuously improves over time by playing the dual roles of ‘doer’ and ‘critic’. Titan’s AI team trained the neural network with thousands of images from the company’s watch collections to create this powerful tool. Generating new designs at the rate of over one per second, this tool enables the watch designer to quickly select and shortlist new watch concepts for further evaluation and development. The tool can either operate in an autonomous mode, or under the control of designers who direct its creativity through a simple, intuitive interface.

With features such as the ability to blend aesthetic elements of successful watches, re-imagine watch forms and generating new concepts quickly, this tool is designed to augment the capabilities of our watch designers. Further developments such as using AI to predict new product success rates, quantify cannibalization effects with existing designs are currently underway. Post successful completion of the pilot, this tool is now being readied for deployment.

Chief Digital & Information Officer, Titan, Krishnan Venkateswaran said, “We are leveraging digital technologies in myriad ways across our business value chain, through omnichannel engagement & commerce, Augmented Reality, Machine Learning & Deep Learning algorithms, we are helping to ensure that our company continues to deliver industry-leading products, services, and experiences physically and digitally.”