Luxury industry explores AI, strategizing future business models

As luxury brands strive to harness the power of artificial intelligence to drive growth, the magic formula is still out of reach. Insights from Bain and Comité Colbert reveal a sector rapidly experimenting with pilots and centralizing AI in back-office operations. In a luxury flagship store, almost everything is designed so that nothing seems automatic.
From the formal manner in which the door is opened to the salesperson’s final gesture of tying a fabric bow onto the logo-emblazoned bag—not to mention the carefully timed wait, the warm lighting, and the thoughtful touches like designer drinks or macarons. This aesthetic, rooted in meticulous, personalized service that emphasizes craftsmanship and savoir-faire, has little or nothing to do with AI prompts or cold, automated responses. That is why the luxury sector continues to place the human and hands-on experience front and center in its storefronts to cement a direct relationship with the customer. Artificial intelligence, for its part, remains for now in the back of the store, far from the counter where a transaction based on the sale of nearly intangible dreams is finalized.