Sneaker aficionados invest hundreds of dollars into rare Nike Air Jordans and the hottest Kanye West Adidas Yeezys. But scoring an authentic pair amid a crush of counterfeits is no slam dunk.
Culver City, Calif., startup GOAT (a nod to the sports shorthand for greatest of all time ) operates the world's largest sneaker marketplace that uses AI to stomp out fakes. The company offers a seal of authenticity for shoes approved for sale on its site.
Counterfeit sneakers are rampant online for some of the most sought after basketball brands.
Yeezys and Jordans are now the most faked shoes in the world, and over 10 percent of all sneakers sold online are fake, said Michael Hall, director of data at GOAT.
A pair of sought-after Kanye West Adidas Yeezys or Nike Air Jordans can easily set you back more than $300.
Pop culture interest in iconic shoes developed for sports stars and celebrity rappers is fueling instant sellouts in new releases. Meanwhile, there's a heated aftermarket for the most popular footwear fashions as well as scarce vintage and retro models.
As a result, sneaker fans and novices alike are turning to a new wave of shoe sellers, such as GOAT, to ensure they're getting getting an authentic pair of the most sought-after shoes.
GOAT pioneered the ship-to-verify model in the sneaker industry. This means that sellers can list any shoes on GOAT's marketplace, but shoes that sell are first sent to the company for authentication by its image detection AI. If the shoes are found to be replicas or not as described, they don't ship and buyers are given a refund.
Founded in 2015, GOAT's business is booming. The startup, which has expanded to more than 500 employees, attracts more than 10 million users and has the largest catalog of sneakers in the world at 35,000 skus. This year, the company merged with Flight Club, a sneaker consignment store with locations in Los Angeles,New York City and Miami.
GOAT's popular app and website - some users have sold more than $10 million in sneakers - has secured nearly $100 million in venture capital funding. The company is a member of NVIDIA's Inception program, which offers technical guidance to promising AI startups.
AI to Kick Out Counterfeits
When you're offering 35,000 unique styles, tracking down counterfeit sneakers is no small challenge. GOAT has teams of sneaker experts trained in the art of spotting replicas without AI. They can spot a fake in like 10 seconds, said Emmanuelle Fuentes, lead data scientist at GOAT.
Image recognition assists GOAT's teams of authenticators and quality assurance representatives to ID and authenticate shoes in the warehouse. And the more GOAT's experts provide helpful metadata to train the AI as they work, the better it helps all those vetting sneakers.
There's a long list of data signals that are fed into a cloud instance of GPUs for the identification process and for training the network. GOAT's convolutional neural networks are trained for anomaly and fraud detection.
GOAT, which has multiple neural networks dedicated to brands of sneakers, provides proprietary tools to help its authenticators upload data to train its identification networks.
GPUs Slam Dunk
Tracking and sharing expertise on so many models of high-end sneakers requires logging a ton of photos of authentic sneakers to help assist team members in handling shoes sent in for verification.
The resolution that we are capturing things at and the scale that we are capturing the images - it's a high-resolution, massive computational challenge requiring GPUs, said Fuentes.
GOAT turned to NVIDIA TITAN Xp GPUs and NVIDIA Tesla GPUs on P2 instances of AWS running the cuDNN-accelerated PyTorch deep learning framework to initially train their neural networks on 75,000 images of authentic sneakers.
The company relies on the power of GPUs for identification of all of its sneaker models, Hall added. For some of the most-coveted sneakers, there are more inauthentic pairs than real ones out there. Previously there wasn't a way for sneakerheads to purchase with confidence, he said.
Most recent headlines
05/01/2027
Worlds first 802.15.4ab-UWB chip verified by Calterah and Rohde & Schwarz to be ...
07/10/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, today announced the latest Long-Term Supported (LTS) release of Dalet Flex. Build...
06/09/2026
June 9 2026, 23:00 (PDT) Dolby and MagentaTV Bring Fans Closer to the FIFA Worl...
04/08/2026
Dalet, a leading technology and service provider for media-rich organizations, t...
16/07/2026
Glensound returns to IBC with a major new addition to its intelligent loudspeaker range, the Greater Divine Supernal studio monitor, alongside recent developmen...
16/07/2026
33 leading exhibitors are taking part in the GREAT Britain and Northern Ireland Pavilions and linked locations across IBC2026 (Amsterdam RAI, 11 14 September)...
16/07/2026
Hitomi Broadcast will introduce Spectra, a new HDR colour verification solution measured in picture, not using VPID, at IBC2026 (Hall 10, Stand A40). Expanding ...
16/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
16/07/2026
Zixi, a leader in live video delivery and workflow orchestration, and Comcast Technology Solutions (CTS) today announced a strategic new integration to deliver ...
16/07/2026
Blackmagic Design Cameras Capture Immersive Flight for New Cirrus App
Brie Clayton July 15, 2026
0 Comments
Leader in Personal Aviation taps URSA Cin...
16/07/2026
XenData Announces LTO Archive Appliances with both File and S3 Object Storage In...
16/07/2026
Onimusha: Way of the Sword is coming to GeForce NOW at launch, with the playable...
16/07/2026
Together the semi-finals had a combined reach of 1.98 million unique individuals...
15/07/2026
The 2026 FIFA World Cup is a big deal for DAZN, which has distribution rights in three markets: Italy, Spain, and Japan. Each requires a different editorial app...
15/07/2026
As sports-media organizations manage rapidly growing content libraries and incre...
15/07/2026
HBS director of digital Johannes Franken talks SVG Europe through the operation built to serve FIFA World Cup 2026 rights holders remotely from Stratford, east ...
15/07/2026
IBC has unveiled the conference program for IBC2026, with this year's event ...
15/07/2026
Software-defined wideband RF platform supports 96-kHz monitoring, streamlined fr...
15/07/2026
New AI-powered module enables broadcasters and content owners to extract dialogu...
15/07/2026
Weeklong gathering at EBU headquarters will test new IPMX capabilities and expand certified product ecosystem...
15/07/2026
Force Tech has announced the appointment of Bryan Adams, CTS, as Vice President of Integration. Adams will oversee AV and broadcast integration project delivery...
15/07/2026
USA Sports has announced an exclusive English-language agreement with the Bundes...
15/07/2026
ITV Sport's FIFA World Cup 2026 coverage has been produced from one of the m...
15/07/2026
Program will provide professional camera kits, training, and technical support to participating local newsrooms...
15/07/2026
San Francisco church becomes first U.S. deployment of the 2 M/E production switcher...
15/07/2026
Former ESPN and NFL Network executive to advise startup league on media, distribution, technology, and fan engagement...
15/07/2026
The Houston-based RSN is the live-game home of the Astros and Rockets...
15/07/2026
Launched alongside new FreqSoft installer
Designed to bridge the gap between hardware and software, Freqport's FreqInOut FO1 unit provides a simple way ...
15/07/2026
Save up to 55% on software until 23 July 2026
Expressive E have just launched their Summer Offer sale, with discounts of up to 55% now applied across their ...
15/07/2026
Real-time stem-separation tool updated
zplane have recently released a new and improved version of their real-time stem-separation plug-in which they say ma...
15/07/2026
A new benchmark in bass enhancement
Described as a new benchmark in bass enhancement , Baby Audio's latest release has been designed to augment the lo...
15/07/2026
DMC Production's AR 1 and AR 2 units reverse the conventional OB workflow, keeping all production-critical processing at the venue while operators work remo...
15/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
15/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
15/07/2026
GigaCloud, a leading Ukrainian cloud service provider, and Cubbit, the first geo-distributed cloud storage enabler, today announced a new Business Alliance Part...
15/07/2026
SMPTE, the global society for media professionals, technologists, and engineers, has announced the launch of the SMPTE 110th Anniversary Campaign, a fundraising...
15/07/2026
Studio Technologies, a leading manufacturer of high-quality audio, video, and fiber-optic solutions, unveils the new StudioComm Model 762 Stereo Level Control, ...
15/07/2026
COW Jobs: Producer, Virtual Events - Hybrid, Full Time, Salaried
Brie Clayton July 15, 2026
0 Comments
Producer, Virtual Events (Hybrid | Full-time | ...
15/07/2026
Brazilian media organization builds nationwide CDN with Broadpeak's high-performance software for low-latency streaming and new content distribution service...
15/07/2026
DHD announces a new utility designed to increase the efficiency of its audio mixing systems during initial installation and subsequent configuration.
Anyone w...
15/07/2026
BCNEXXT Brings Next-Generation Vipe to IBC2026, Breaking the 1:1 Channel-to-Server Ratio New innovations liberate broadcasters from legacy playout infrastructur...
15/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
15/07/2026
Share
Copy link
Facebook
X
Linkedin
Bluesky
Email...
15/07/2026
General-purpose robots and autonomous machines are moving from research labs to ...
15/07/2026
Wednesday 15 July 2026
Screeners and press pack now available: Gomorrah: The Or...
Sneaker aficionados invest hundreds of dollars into rare Nike Air Jordans and the hottest Kanye West Adidas Yeezys. But scoring an authentic pair amid a crush of counterfeits is no slam dunk.
