Montreal luxury fashion retailer Ssense has laid off its full-time photography, retouching and hair-and-makeup teams and is planning to use AI to do much of their work, The Logic has learned.

Approximately 12 people were laid off, according to a source at the meeting on Monday in which staff were let go. The source said managers explained that the layoffs were tied to how quickly AI had become capable of producing high-quality work. The people laid off were responsible for preparing and photographing models and retouching images that appear on Ssense’s retail website. Staff from a small team of stylists will oversee the work that will now mostly be done by AI, according to a source.

“Ssense is evolving its content production approach to increase speed, agility and scalability,” chief commercial officer Christine Sio told The Logic. As part of this, she added, a number of roles had been “impacted.” Sio said that adopting new technologies would “strengthen Ssense’s distinct [point of view] and brand identity, which have been constrained by traditional production” and that the use of AI would not replace exactly the same work done by humans. 

The layoffs come months after a court-supervised restructuring that saw Ssense CEO Rami Atallah and his co-founder brothers Firas and Bassel buy back the company out of bankruptcy protection, alongside a Canadian multi-family office. The Superior Court of Quebec approved the deal in February. 

The layoffs are relatively small compared to the deep cuts Ssense has made since the start of 2025. The company had nearly 1,900 employees as of Dec. 9, 2024, according to business analytics and research firm PitchBook, with headcount falling to about 1,160 by August 2025. 

Eliminating key creative teams, however, seemingly points to how Ssense plans to use AI to remake parts of its business after years of financial turmoil following the pandemic-era online retail boom. 

Founded in Montreal in 2003, Ssense grew from a niche online fashion retailer into one of Canada’s most successful e-commerce companies, selling designer brands to customers around the world. The company rode a surge in online shopping during the pandemic, reaching a reported valuation of roughly US$5 billion in 2021, before a slowdown in luxury spending, rising interest rates and operational missteps pushed it into financial trouble.

By the time the company entered bankruptcy protection in September 2025, it owed creditors more than $371 million after years of losses.

A group of creditors, led by the Bank of Montreal, had opposed the Atallah brothers’ plan to buy back the company, pushing instead for Ssense to liquidate so they could recover cash from the business. The group was concerned that the founder-led buyback would “result in a significantly lower economic outcome.” The Superior Court judge ultimately sided with the founders. 

Ssense told the court at the time it planned to retain approximately 660 regular employees and 100 occasional, on-call workers. 

Internal documents viewed by The Logic show Ssense has been pushing hard to integrate AI into its operations. “At Ssense, we’re going to embed AI into our DNA and use it to fundamentally transform our core functions,” Rami Atallah said at a company-wide meeting in April, “from how we develop software and create content to how we curate products and interact with our customers.” 

A presentation from July 2025 showcased a “Virtual Try-On” proof of concept as one of the studio department’s key strategic projects. The initiative aimed to use augmented reality, 3D modelling and AI to create lifelike digital renderings showing garments displayed on virtual models rather than needing to be being photographed. 

The presentation described a future in which virtual try-on technology could produce “editorial-grade visuals” while improving efficiency and lowering production costs. 

More recently, Ssense began formalizing AI adoption across the company, according to documents seen by The Logic. An email to staff describes plans for AI governance policies, employee training programs, usage monitoring and a pilot program using Anthropic’s Claude platform. Earlier this month, the company launched a monthly “AI Show & Tell” series to encourage workers to experiment with AI and share their progress with their colleagues.

“Al is here to augment our work, reduce the tedious parts and help us focus on higher-value activities, enabling our teams to apply their expertise, judgment, and creativity in even more impactful ways. Wherever you are on that curve, we’re here to help,” reads an internal company email sent to staff earlier this month from the company’s “AI Centre of Excellence.” The email added that Ssene was “moving from ‘move fast and learn’ to building the foundations needed” to make widespread AI use “sustainable.” 

While encouraging employees to embrace AI, the company said it anticipates a sharp rise in costs linked to the technology. “To keep access broad,” the email continued, “we need to spend wisely.”