Swatch Launches AI-DADA: OpenAI-Powered Watch Design Tool for Custom Timepieces

Swatch's New OpenAI-Powered Tool Lets You Design Your Own Watch

Dubbed AI‑DADA, Swatch says this AI-powered design tool lets you create entirely unique watches starting from a blank canvas and using only your imagination as a guide to the final outcome. After logging into your Swatch account, you prompt AI‑DADA with your own idea, then, in less than two minutes, a "unique watch design comes to life." To underline this uniqueness, each AI‑DADA watch carries a "1/1" sign on its case back. And, just as with Swatch x You, it's possible to further customize the watch by choosing indexes or selecting the color of its mechanism. To save on data center power drains and rampant creativity run amuck, you're only allowed three prompts per day on AI‑DADA, something that Swatch is spinning as a "creative challenge that makes every attempt feel special." Ultimately, what we have here, is a new version of Swatch x You that has been plugged with image-generation software supplied by OpenAI, thus letting the general public emblazon its timepieces with whatever graphics they see fit to dream up and deposit on them. What could possibly go wrong here, I wonder? I asked Roberto Amico, Swatch Group's global head of digital & ecommerce, what guardrails have been put in place to stop people making, say, their very own Jeffrey Epstein Swatch, or White Power Swatch, or Stormy Daniels Swatch. Or maybe a Swatch with a Rolex logo on it, or something that looks a lot like the Rolex logo. Amico reassures me Swatch has indeed set guardrails, particularly with logos, for example, alongside the certain restrictions already in place from OpenAI. But interestingly, Swatch Group CEO Nick Hayek Jr. tells me he battled with OpenAI to remove some of its existing guardrails to make AI‑DADA "more liberal, more Swatch." Hayek also confessed at the launch event in Switzerland that his first prompts on AI‑DADA all concerned "sex, drugs, and rock'n'roll," but he was told his own model wouldn't allow it. Still, you can never underestimate the ingenuity of the general public to get around obvious red flags -- such as a ban on the model reproducing nudity or religious iconography -- and create something that Swatch might not want to be associated with. Time will tell how bulletproof this model truly is. While Swatch's image model may be based on OpenAI, it defaults to a data set of more than 40 years of Swatch watches, products, designs, art and street paintings. Like a pattern or color on a particular 1980s Swatch dial or strap? It's in there. Have a fondness for a Keith Haring or Vivienne Westwood or Phil Collins collaboration, the model has this too. If you ask for a design inspired by something outside of what Swatch has collected together in this archive, only then, Amico tells me, does AI‑DADA go beyond the in-house dataset and mine OpenAI's data.

Swatch has a new AI tool that lets you design your own watch - introducing AI-DADA

Swatch has never been shy about letting people remix its watches with Swatch X You (I have a few myself), but now it's handing fans an even bigger brush. The brand has launched AI-DADA, a new AI-powered design tool that lets you create your own Swatch watch from scratch. No design training. No fiddly interface. Just an idea, a prompt, and a couple of minutes of waiting while the system cooks up something completely unique. The AI tool is trained on more than forty years of Swatch history - not just the watches, but the brand's long stretch of art projects, street collabs, museum tie-ins, and the general swirl of colour and provocation it's known for. Swatch calls this "artistic intelligence," leaning into the idea that creativity isn't a bonus feature but a form of intelligence in its own right. The "DADA" part nods to the Dada movement born in Zurich over a century ago. Using AI-DADA is simple. Log in to your Swatch account, give it a prompt, and it'll generate a unique design in under two minutes. You can fine-tune the results too: swap index styles, tweak the mechanism colour, and shape the final look before it becomes a New Gent you can actually buy. Swatch adds a little wink on the back with a "1/1" engraving, making each piece feel special rather than algorithmically churned out. To keep things playful, you're limited to three prompts a day, which does add a "let's make this one count" vibe. The bigger idea here is accessibility. Swatch has always pushed this - Swiss-made, but affordable; art you can wear rather than stare at. AI-DADA takes the same spirit and gives people a way to co-create a product without needing the skills of an illustrator or a designer. If you've got an image in your head, this tool tries to meet you halfway. AI-DADA launches on Swatch's website in Switzerland today (21 November 2025), with more regions joining later. Given Swatch's track record of turning collaborations into cult objects, don't be surprised if these AI-generated watches end up becoming their own subculture (just like Random Ghosts and MoonSwatches).