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Max Fashion Brings AI Virtual Try-Ons To Gulf Online Shoppers
Landmark Group’s value fashion brand is using Google Cloud’s generative AI to tackle the returns problem that has dogged ecommerce since its beginning.
Buying clothes online has always involved a gamble. A garment that looks right on a model may hang differently on the person ordering it, and the result is a cycle of returns that costs retailers money and customers patience. Max Fashion, part of Dubai-based Landmark Group, is betting that generative AI can improve the experience.
The brand has launched what it describes as one of the region’s first virtual try-on experiences, built on Google Cloud’s Virtual Try-On API and generative AI vision models delivered through the Gemini Enterprise platform. Starting in the UAE, shoppers browsing Max’s digital platforms can see realistic previews of how garments drape, fit and move across different body types before committing to a purchase.
For many online shoppers, uncertainty is the single biggest barrier between scrolling and buying. “It helps address real purchase barriers, particularly around fit and confidence, while allowing us to create a richer and more engaging shopping journey,” explained Hani Weiss, chief executive officer of Max Fashion, who framed the rollout as part of the brand’s ambition to make fashion more accessible.
Bala Subramaniam, senior vice president and head of omnichannel at Max, seemed even more enthusiastic about the technology: “For the first time, a customer browsing on their phone has the same confidence as one standing in our fitting room”.
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Whether AI previews can genuinely match a fitting room remains to be proven at scale. The technology’s value will depend on how accurately it renders fabric and fit across the full range of bodies that shop at a value fashion brand, and on whether shoppers trust what they see enough to change their behavior.
For Google Cloud, the deployment is also a statement about where regional retail is heading. “AI-driven personalization is no longer a luxury, it is a core business imperative for forward-thinking retailers,” says Ziad Jammal, general manager for Google Cloud UAE, Levant and North Africa. If the returns data eventually backs that up, the rest of the region’s retailers will be watching closely.
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Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon
Foreign visitors will be the first users to benefit, but whether Syria’s own banks and cardholders follow is still an open question.
Visa is returning to Syria. Its first live international card transaction in the country was a test rather than a launch, and the milestone event ran through a Lebanese bank.
The acquirer (the bank on the merchant’s side of a card payment) was Fransabank Lebanon, with Paymera as the other named partner. Nadim Moujaes, who heads a Fransabank Group subsidiary, describes the test as both the culmination of “longstanding efforts to link Syria back to international payment networks” and “the first step in a larger path”.
Syrian President Ahmed Al-Sharaa makes the first electronic payment in Syria using a @Visa card at a store in Damascus, following the lifting of US sanctions on Syria. pic.twitter.com/lpAN7nQ6Fc
— Tech Magazine (@TechMGZN) August 27, 2026
“We are excited to have successfully tested live transactions today as we plan to enable international visitors to use their Visa cards while in Syria,” says Leila Serhan, Visa’s senior vice president and group country manager for the North Africa, Levant and Pakistan region. Although a significant first step, that plan doesn’t come with a hard date for when a visitor’s card will work normally.
Mohammed Safwat Raslan, governor of the Central Bank of Syria, says the test paves the way for international card acceptance in Syria and that maintaining strong compliance, risk management and operational controls will remain essential. Serhan likewise stresses that Visa has worked within applicable legal, regulatory and compliance requirements. For a test transaction, it seems there was a great deal of attention paid to the rules, with the entire operation being carefully managed.
Also Read: Lebanon’s 5G Era Begins With 150 Stations And A $1M Budget
The test is the latest step in a sequence that began in December 2025, when Visa announced a strategic roadmap to support Syria’s integration into the global digital economy. In February 2026 it hosted its first industry gathering of banks, ecosystem partners and policymakers in Damascus and, the same month, signed an agreement with Syria’s Ministry of Communications and Information Technology in San Francisco.
Michel Kattouah, Paymera’s CEO, called the test “the return of international card acceptance,” but while that’s positive news, there’s no word yet on when a Syrian bank will issue a Visa card to a Syrian customer.
Visa’s Return To Syria Starts With A Test And A Bank In Lebanon
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