Morgan Stanley said the softline brands and retailers could save big next year by automating more.

There are still more questions than answers on artificial intelligence — What will AI change? Will it be smarter than us? — but a group of Morgan Stanley analysts took a best guess at how the next machine revolution could impact retail costs.

The result? Big potential savings as more work becomes automated.

Morgan Stanley’s AI framework suggested that fashion brands and retailers could see $6 billion in “total cost savings opportunity and potential,” at the midpoint of their estimates. That would translate into a 20 percent increase for earnings before interest and taxes in 2026 and “a large, sector-wide tailwind” for softline companies.