- Syntilay has launched 3D printed shoes designed with AI.
- The shoe was designed with a mix of Midjourney and Vizcom AI
- The $150 shoes use smartphone foot scans for a fully custom fit.
If you like crocodiles but wish they had a sci-fi backstory, you're in luck. A startup called Syntilay is using AI and 3D printing to produce a new line of shoes. The futuristic shoe is available now for $150 per pair. These slides aren't cheap, but innovation rarely is.
Syntilay uses a mix of AI tools complemented by human artistry to create its shoes, which look more like a deep-sea fish at first glance. The designers relied on MidJourney to develop the basic shape of the shoe. After that, a human artist refined the idea with an inspiration sketch uploaded to Vizcom Ai, which produced a 3D model based on the sketch. AI then helped design and embed textures and patterns into the shoe's design, completing its look.
Entrepreneur Ben Weiss founded Syntilay, but he has the backing of Reebok co-founder Joe Foster, who added some credibility to the idea. The shoes come in five colors: orange, red, beige, black and blue. They are supposed to evoke the work of Syd Mead, the artist behind the iconic images in Blade Runner and Aliens.
ai shoes
The $150 shoes are 3D printed in Germany and made especially for each customer, shipping after about three weeks. If you want to buy a pair, you are asked to scan your feet with a smartphone camera so that the shoes fit perfectly, even adjusting for the usual small differences between people's right and left feet.
There is also the question of practicality. While scanning feet with a phone camera sounds simple, not everyone is eager to be a full tech just to buy shoes. And what happens if the fit isn't right after all that scanning and printing? These are obstacles that Syntilay will need to address as it scales its operations.
The question, of course, is whether the market is ready for AI-powered footwear. Syntilay shoes will have to prove themselves worth the expense and wait when it comes to things like comfort and durability.
$150 is a pretty big price when generic Crocs-like slides can cost $20 or even less. Syntilay has to wait for its design, custom fit promise and AI Design trick to win over early adopters.
There have certainly been custom shoes before, but combining AI and 3D printing may appeal to those looking to be trendsetters.