Create AI-Powered Personalized Products in Minutes with Customily

Staying relevant in the print-on-demand world means moving fast. Trends come and go overnight: one week everyone wants funny Halloween mugs, the next week it’s personalized Christmas ornaments, and by Valentine’s Day, heart-shaped photo gifts are taking over.

For POD sellers, the challenge isn’t just keeping up with demand, it’s creating new designs quickly enough to ride these waves. Traditionally, you’d need hours of design work, professional tools, or even outsourced help to keep your store fresh and competitive.

But with AI and Customily, those barriers disappear. You can now go from idea to live personalized product in minutes, without advanced design skills. AI helps you generate, edit, and adapt designs instantly, while Customily turns those designs into customizable products that customers can preview and order right away.

In this article, we’ll walk you through the key AI tools inside Customily, show you how to apply them to real product ideas, and explain why combining AI with personalization is a gamechanger for your POD business.

1. AI Background Removal: From Messy to Market-Ready 🖼️

Every POD seller has been there: your shopper wants to use a great design or photo, but the background is messy, distracting, or simply doesn’t fit the product. Normally, you’d spend 20–30 minutes cutting it out in Photoshop, or hire a freelancer to do it for you.

With Customily’s free AI background remover, that work is done in seconds. You just need to apply the remove background automatically option to your products, and when your shoppers upload an image, the background is gone, leaving you with a clean, professional graphic ready to print. Unlike other apps, this feature is built right into Customily, so you don’t need third-party tools or extra subscriptions.

Why this matters for POD:

• Customer-uploaded photos are often poor quality or cluttered. Background removal ensures their image looks polished on your product.
• You can instantly transform casual snapshots into professional-looking designs for gifts like mugs, canvases, or phone cases.
• It lowers your editing workload, meaning you can offer photo-based products at scale without worrying about cleanup.

Product ideas to try:

• Pet portraits on blankets or pillows (remove messy living room backgrounds, keep only the pet).
• Custom mugs with customer-uploaded photos of friends/family.
• Personalized canvases where only the subject remains, placed against a themed background.

2. AI Face Cutouts: Put Your Customers in the Design 👧🏻

One of the fastest-growing trends in personalized products is inserting customer faces into themed templates. Think: superhero bodies, Halloween costumes, wedding caricatures, or sports jerseys.

Customily’s free AI face cut tool makes this easy. Your shoppers can upload a photo, and the AI isolates the face cleanly. You can insert photo uploads with this behavior into any design template, giving customers hilarious and memorable keepsakes. And just like with background removal, you don’t need to rely on third-party apps, everything happens inside Customily.

Why this matters for POD:

• Face cutouts make products highly shareable, customers love posting funny results on social media.
• They’re quick to personalize, increasing your order volume without adding complexity.
• You can build themed collections around holidays, fandoms, or pop culture trends.

Product ideas to try:

• Halloween T-shirts where customers’ faces replace the characters.
• Sports posters where fans’ faces appear on athletes’ bodies.
• Cartoon-themed mugs featuring customers as superheroes.

3. AI Image Generation: Endless Design Ideas, On Demand 🤖

Sometimes you have an idea but lack the artwork. Commissioning a designer takes time, and stock images feel generic. That’s where AI image generation inside Customily comes in.

There are two powerful ways you can use this tool:

Option 1: Pre-Defined Prompts (Filters at Scale)

As a seller, you can create a prompt once, and every time a customer uploads their photo, that prompt will be applied. It’s like offering an endless library of filters that automatically transform customer images.

👉 Example: A prompt that turns any photo into a “watercolor painting” or “comic-style portrait.” Customers just upload their picture, and Customily’s AI instantly generates the styled version.

Option 2: Customer-Controlled Prompts

You can also give customers full creative control by allowing them to write their own prompts. This way, they can experiment with styles, effects, or backgrounds, making their product truly unique and personal.

👉 Example: A customer could type “retro neon cityscape background” or “pet portrait in Van Gogh style” and instantly see it applied to their product.

Important to know:
Both options use OpenAI credits, and you’ll need to connect your API key with your Customily account to enable image generation. This setup is quick and ensures you have full control over how much AI usage you offer your customers.

Why this matters for POD:

• You can launch seasonal collections in hours, not weeks.
• Every customer gets a unique product variation.
• Your store stands out by offering personalization that feels limitless.

Product ideas to try:

• Seasonal backgrounds for tumblers, mugs, or blankets.
• Pet portraits transformed into famous painting styles.
• Trend-driven apparel designs based on customer creativity.

Publish and Personalize Instantly with Customily 💜

AI tools help you create designs, but what makes Customily powerful is what comes next: turning those designs into live, personalized products your customers can preview before buying.

Here’s how it works:

1. Create your AI-enhanced designs directly into Customily's design studio, adding personalization options like names, dates, etc.
2. Choose your products (from t-shirts to jewelry to home décor) & publish into your store.
3. Customers interact with your product in real time, seeing exactly how their personalization looks before checkout.

This “live preview” not only improves customer experience but also increases conversions and reduces returns.

Popular products to personalize with AI designs:

• Apparel: T-shirts, hoodies, leggings with AI-generated graphics.
• Drinkware: Tumblers, mugs, water bottles with seasonal AI backgrounds.
• Home Décor: Blankets, pillows, canvases with face cutouts or photo edits.
• Jewelry & Keepsakes: Engraved items paired with AI-generated artwork.

Why AI + Customily Is the Perfect Match 🎯

On their own, AI tools are exciting, but they don’t get products into customers’ hands. With Customily, AI becomes part of a full personalization workflow:

• AI speeds up design creation.
• Customily transforms those designs into customizable products.
• Customers personalize, preview, and buy with confidence.
• Automatic fulfillment with POD providers means you don’t need to worry about production or shipping. Once an order is placed, Customily generates the print file and sends it straight to your POD partner (like Printify or Printful). They handle printing and delivery, so you can focus on growing your business.

The result? A faster time-to-market, endless product variations, and happier customers who love being part of the creative process.

Conclusion: Sell More by Working Smarter 🧠

AI isn’t here to replace your creativity, it’s here to unlock it. By removing busywork, generating endless ideas, and simplifying design tasks, AI empowers you to focus on building a brand your customers love.

And when paired with Customily, AI doesn’t just help you create designs, it helps you sell them. With built-in personalization, live previews, and automatic fulfillment, you can bring on-trend products to market faster than ever before, capturing demand while it’s hot.

Don’t get left behind. Start your free trial with Customily and discover how easy it is to create, personalize, and sell AI-powered POD products!

Happy customizing! 🤖