</ Larry Schwartz/ > aetrex CEO > Eliminating Guesswork--< teaneck, new jersey >

Larry Schwartz, 56, has been using technology to help his footwear customers get the best fit for decades, and now he hopes artificial intelligence will help him share the love with the entire industry.

After taking over Aetrex in 1998 from his father—his grandfather and great uncle started the company in 1946—Schwartz noted that roughly 30 to 40 percent of online footwear sales were returned because of incorrect sizing.

Schwartz tried to resolve the issue with a number of tools over the years—depth-sensing cameras, capable of taking 3-D scans, for instance, led to the 2018 release of the company’s flagship fit product, Albert. Now, the latest version, dubbed Albert 2 Pro, which captures both 3-D foot scans and foot pressure data, can be found in shoe stores across the globe. When paired with Aetrex’s AI-powered FitGenius platform, the company can recommend specific shoe models and sizes by automatically cross-referencing a customer’s unique 3-D foot profile with the purchase history of customers with similar-size feet.

Schwartz is now in the middle of adding a new line of business: Foot.com, a B2B-focused portal containing Aetrex’s vast array of data from more than three million foot scans. This data is used by footwear developers like Ecco, Boa, and Lululemon when creating new shoes, and Schwartz says it could help standardize sizes across brands and drastically lower returns. “AI is enabling us to take the guesswork out of sizing,” says Schwartz, “and this data will help the industry take the guesswork out of shoe development.”