Farfetch is beginning to get back into growth mode — and the great graces of Wall Street. 

Shares of Farfetch shot up 16.8 percent to $5.07 in after-hours trading on Thursday after the corporate reported first-quarter results that showed gross merchandise volume had inched up 0.1 percent to $931.7 million. Revenues for the quarter increased 8 percent to $556.4 million.

The stock continues to be well off of Farfetch’s 52-week high of $12.89, however the jump back gives the corporate some welcome momentum. 

The primary-quarter performance marked a major turn for Farfetch, which saw GMV drop 12 percent within the fourth quarter, when China was hindered by COVID-19 lockdowns and the comparisons were hurt by the closure of the corporate’s Russia business. 

Now José Neves, founder, chairman and chief executive officer, is trying to press forward to profitability — with cost cuts and a flurry of latest partnerships — while positioning the corporate to steer within the buzzy world of AI. 

Farfetch, the rare fashion company that can also be an actual player in tech, has a long-standing partnership with Microsoft that has allowed it to access essentially the most advanced version of ChatGPT to develop luxury applications. 

In an interview with WWD, Neves, a technologist at heart, acknowledged the broader societal concerns around artificial intelligence. 

“Any technology is a double-edged sword,” the CEO said. “And technologies can all the time be used for good or not.” 

But in fashion, he said the appliance of AI could be more straightforward compared with the moral questions faced by the broader search platforms. 

“By way of our industry particularly, fortunately it’s all about celebrating individuality, celebrating style, celebrating creativity,” he said. “And one in all the things that is essential in fine-tuning and training these models is de facto ensuring that we’re focused on what we’re all about, which is discovering this amazing world of fashion globally. And produce that in an elevated and personalized solution to customers and probably not get into areas that in other businesses might be very problematic.

“The secret’s to have the client in mind, to have the brand’s image in mind and all the time ensure that that we elevate the client experience,” Neves said. 

That shouldn’t be a recent idea at Farfetch. 

“We all the time take a really customer-centric view,” Neves said. “We don’t like technology for the sake of technology. We don’t think that that works in any industry, but particularly in our industry. That is an industry of inspiration, of discovery of a really, very demanding customer and a really, very demanding seller on the platform.”

And he said Farfetch already uses AI to assist it connect consumers, as an example by giving personalized recommendations which have helped convert shoppers into buyers. 

“Three years ago, we’ve really recognized that personalization was a key strategic initiative for us and we increased the dimensions of our machine-learning data science teams and really invested within the talent to construct on any such technology,” Neves said. “And it has really paid off. So we’ve seen our advice engine, which is built entirely in-house, our rank algorithm, which ranks the products on a one-to-one basis and personalizes it to the personalized communications.”

Now the corporate goes to be exploring the potential of AI’s conversational skills.

“We’re developing three proofs of concepts, three prototypes, which I’ve seen already and made me very excited personally as a technologist,” Neves said. “It might probably’t be only a mechanical robotical conversation. It needs to be an inspirational, engaging conversation. And even within the early different elements, we’re already seeing that and the way in which the models learn and recover in a short time, [it’s] quite impressive.”

Count AI as one in all the numerous things on the agenda for Neves.

The CEO told analysts on a conference call that 2023 could be “our 12 months of execution,” that the deal to start out operating Yoox Net-a-porter was on course and that “cost-reduction and dealing capital initiatives toward achieving our 2023 profitability and free money flow objectives are well on course.” 

In the primary quarter, Farfetch posted adjusted losses before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization of $35 million. The goal is to get adjusted earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization margins to 1 to three percent for the complete 12 months.

 Net losses tallied $174 million for the primary quarter. 

As Farfetch waited out tough comparisons following the exit of Russia within the wake of its invasion of Ukraine, it has been busy constructing recent businesses. 

“Our 2023 launches, including Reebok and Ferragamo, have either been delivered or remained on schedule for launch later this 12 months, as within the case of Neiman Marcus Group,” Neves said. 

And China is waking back up, too.

“I actually have just spent per week in mainland China and Hong Kong and I’m very excited by what I witnessed,” Neves said. “Not only does the country appear to be back to normal with a variety of positive energy, it is usually clear that the appetite for luxury may be very strong.”