Man City fans used AI to design the team’s new kit

FastCompany: Manchester City’s new uniforms are the first professional kits designed by fans using AI that will be worn on a football pitch. The Premier League team announced a new fan-designed alternative kit that was made using Puma AI Creator, the German sportswear brand’s custom generative AI tool. Puma launched the AI generator in December 2024 . It’s powered by Deepobjects, an AI co-creation platform, and it works through text prompts, sliders, and customization tools for elements like collar, colors, and badge placements. Last year, players Ederson, Stefan Ortega, and Rico Lewis made an AI-generated goalie kit that’s green with a goal net pattern.

The club then opened the tool to the public to design for the rest of the team. [Image: Puma] People from more than 200 countries generated more than 180,000 unique designs that racked up more than 1.7 million votes. The platform gave users design credits and two entries plus the ability to earn more credits and entries by rating other designs or holding a Puma NFT. [Image: Puma] From a shortlist of 10 finalists, the winner was a design made from a prompt from a lifelong Man City fan named Elliott who said he created it on his lunch break.

It shows a pair of blue, vertical stripes with gradients—one in sky blue, the other in navy—that run down the center of a white jersey with the club’s badge, and the logos for Puma and the team’s sponsor, Etihad Airways, on the front. The kits are made from Puma’s Ultrawave, its lightweight performance fabric. Unlike adversarial design , or AI-made fashion design meant to confuse AI systems, the winning kit isn’t a bizarre or trippy pattern. In fact, the club has used white kits with two vertical sky blue and navy stripes before , made by Nike for the 2013-14 season .

[Image: Puma] The kit does, however, represent a milestone for AI adoption in professional sports. According to the club, it will be the first professional AI fan-designed kit to be worn on a football pitch. Online in the team’s comments section, though, some critics have called it “AI slop” or unoriginal. [Image: Puma] “Puma AI Creator represents a genuinely new way of thinking about how football kits are made and who gets to shape them,” Puma’s vice president of teamsport Dominique Gathier said in a statement.

“The volume of entries we received speaks to the strength of the Manchester City fanbase, and the design that came through reflects that.” The look of the ultimate final design may be secondary to the process it took to get there.

By harnessing fan creativity and creating a community online around the decision, Puma and Manchester City turned their alternative kit into a fan experience .

This article discusses a significant collaboration between a major sports brand and its fans, showcasing a new approach to brand engagement that could influence future strategies in the industry.