Swatch is rolling out its AI Dada design tool worldwide, allowing users to create their own unique quartz timepiece by feeding prompts to the brand’s artificial intelligence software.
The program, now available in the U.S. for the first time, asks users to give prompts of up to 300 words and then uses an artificial intelligence large language model to generate a Swatch ‘New Gent’ 41 millimeter diameter watch design based on the cues. Users must log in to the Swatch website to try the tool and are limited to generating three designs per day.
If a user chooses to buy their design, Swatch says the unique piece will be produced and shipped within about five days. Watch designs generated on the U.S. site were priced at $195 when we tried it out on launch and hit the ‘buy’ button.
The AI Dada tool – named for ‘Artificial Intelligence’ and the anti-establishment, avant-garde ‘Dada’ art movement and school of thought in the early twentieth century – first rolled out in Switzerland in late 2025 and in select parts of Europe earlier this year. Now, U.S. residents can access the program for the first time and utilize the artificial intelligence data to design a watch.
I went to an event in Paris for the launch of AI Dada in Europe a few weeks ago and spoke with Carlo Giordanetti, the CEO of the Swatch Art Peace Hotel and a member of the Swatch Management Board. The long-time Swatch executive and designer says using artificial intelligence to create a watch represents the next step in giving customers the tools to express their individual tastes and interests.
“We all see this as a dialog with ‘AI Dada,’ but it’s actually a dialog with yourself,” Giordanetti says.
“You need to translate what you have in mind into words, and then hopefully it will give you a watch that you want to wear.”
Guests trying the new AI Dada design tool at a Swatch Boutique event in Paris.
We’ve been playing with the AI Dada tool for a few weeks now and have created a series of designs using prompts specifying styles, colors, and specific inspirations from the art and design world, as well as our favorite watches from Swatch.
When asked to create a watch for Hodinkee fans and members of the Hodinkee community, noting Hodinkee’s penchant for vintage-inspired and sized watches and including prompts such as ‘ghost bezel’ and grey, this was one of the designs the AI Dada suggested. The monochrome color way is certainly on point.
When given similar Hodinkee-style prompts but with more color suggestions, the AI suggested the watch pictured below. It is definitely a more colorful piece with a bit more personality, and I dig how the color tones and how they come together.
Large language models in artificial intelligence are based on massive datasets and are supposed to change, evolve, and ‘learn’ through user interactions. I figured Swatch’s AI model would be full of its massive catalog of historical designs that dates back to 1983 and has featured scores of artist collaborations or inspirations from Keith Haring to Kiki Picasso and Roy Lichtenstein, as well as Jean-Michel Basquiat. So I prompted the AI tool to produce a watch that highlights the best-known artistic and design collaborations, as well as the most famous models in the Swatch catalog. This one, pictured below, certainly looks like a classic Swatch.
And while I own a few contemporary Swatch watches, including a MoonSwatch (Mission to Jupiter) and last year’s What If…Tariffs? edition limited to the Swiss market, my appreciation for Swatch goes way back to the 1980s and the first watch I ever chose for myself. It was the reference GM-101 Pirelli, and it looked like this.
I asked the AI Dada to make a watch inspired by the Pirelli, using the reference number and name in my prompt, as well as describing the dial design and case colors. The result is something I can see the inspiration in. But I think I’d take the original over this AI interpretation.
Swatch says AI Dada will continue to be rolled out to global markets beyond the U.S. and Europe. The watches are currently limited to the New Gent 41 case design with three choices for movement decorations and an option for dials with indexes or without. The company claims that each watch design is unique and unlike any other. Every case back, which all used a similar white color on the watches I created using the software, is stamped ‘1/1.’
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