Keeping Community & People at the Heart of Innovation: Depop’s Responsible AI Principles
Dec 17, 2025
Keyur Govande, Chief Technology Officer, Depop
At Depop, technology has always been part of how we connect people, build communities and make fashion circular.
Artificial Intelligence (AI) gives us the opportunity to take that even further. It can make things simpler, smarter, and more seamless: helping our teams spend less time on repetitive tasks, sellers get their listings up faster and buyers discover the pieces they’ll love. All so everyone can spend more time doing what matters most: connecting with others, finding inspiration and making it easier for people to take their first step into buying and selling secondhand.
We know though, that AI needs care and intention. As we grow, it is essential to make sure AI meets the needs of our community while protecting safety, security, privacy and creativity. That’s why we’re committed to a human-first, AI-enabled approach, guided by a set of principles that keep people and our community at the heart of everything we do.
Our Responsible AI Principles:
Respect
We place respect for our communities, human rights, the Earth’s finite resources, and the well-being of all stakeholders at the core of our approach to AI. With a large, global community, we often make judgment calls about optimal outcomes across different stakeholders. While AI can support the decision-making process, we recognize that human oversight is required to make informed, balanced decisions that respect the needs of our communities and world.
Fairness
We aim to build marketplaces that are diverse, welcoming and inclusive, and we seek to drive access to opportunity among employees, suppliers, and creative communities. While AI can be a powerful tool for achieving these commitments, unchecked deployment can exacerbate bias. We aim to guard against discrimination and unfair impacts in our communities.
Reliability
We recognize that emerging technologies can carry inherent imperfections and the potential for anomalies. As we test and deploy AI, we will focus on consistency and reliability to help sellers reach their goals and enhance their creativity, employees to effectively complete projects, and buyers to seamlessly navigate their shopping journeys.
Transparency
Trust is essential to building strong communities, and transparency is foundational to trust. As such, we aim to provide appropriate transparency around how we leverage AI for the benefit of our community.
Privacy
We care deeply about privacy and we’re committed to being upfront about our privacy practices, including how we treat personal information1. In developing products and features that incorporate AI, we prioritize safeguarding the privacy of all stakeholders.
Security
We take security seriously and are committed to protecting our AI systems from unauthorized access, modification, and misuse by malicious actors.
Innovation for innovation’s sake has never been - and will never be - the goal. Instead, we meticulously consider how every new technology can improve and humanize the Depop experience for our sellers, buyers and employees.
Navigating the evolving technology landscape is a complex undertaking, but we are dedicated to letting these principles guide our innovation, so we can champion humanity in commerce.
1 - Depop's Privacy Policy provides a detailed explanation of our privacy practices.
Keep exploring
Find out more about how we're using AI:
