Luxury giant LVMH believes strongly in the use of AI throughout its organization, which includes 75 maisons in key sectors of the luxury industry, ranging from wine and spirits to fashion and leather goods, jewelry, and even hospitality and media. But — and it’s a big but — AI’s value to LVMH is in supporting and strengthening specifically human creativity, and that’s by design.
“It’s not a surprise that humanity is a core value of luxury,” said Gonzague de Pirey, Chief Omnichannel and Data Officer at LVMH. “Luxury is all about the human — artistic creation, hand crafting and the human connections our client advisors make.”
“We see AI as helping our creatives be more creative,” added Soumia Hadjali, Global SVP, Client Development and Digital at Louis Vuitton, the “LV” in LVMH. “For us, AI will never replace creativity; it amplifies it.”
De Pirey and Hadjali spoke at the NRF Big Show session, Where Craft Meets Intelligence: How LVMH is Reimagining Luxury for the Modern Consumer, moderated by PwC’s Ali Furman.
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One of the key ways LVMH achieves this tricky balancing act is by ensuring each maison maintains “its own singularity,” said de Pirey. “We invited every maison to have its own AI transformation plan, and when we looked at all these plans, we found a lot of commonality. That means a lot of the behind-the-scenes technology can be shared while each maison keeps its own DNA, such as the vocabulary and the tone of voice it uses.
“For technology to be successful in the luxury sector, it needs to be everywhere but be visible nowhere,” de Pirey added. “We call it ‘quiet’ technology that’s designed to serve the humanness of luxury.”
Making Internal AI Adoption a Key Measure of Success
De Pirey shared highlights of LVMH’s AI journey during the session: “A few years back, we were building the fundamentals of AI, and in the last two to three years, we’ve been finding business cases, piloting and then scaling them.
“The next level is our true AI transformation plan, ‘AI for All,’ which will involve all our employees in the AI journey,” de Pirey added. Hadjali noted that employee adoption of new AI technologies are a “set part of measuring our progress via KPIs. It’s about making sure the users use, adopt and leverage what they’re doing with AI.”
LVMH client advisors already are using AI-generated content to gain easier access to their client’s profiles, and these profiles contain much more than simple demographics and purchase histories. “It’s not just about what the client buys, but about who they are, where they live, what influences and inspires them,” said Hadjali. “The goal is to create intimacy during this long-term journey and being part of our client’s life, not just at the moment of purchase.”
Agentic AI Giving ‘Superpowers’ to Client Advisors
As for agentic AI, which many in the industry see as a potential threat to traditional customer loyalty for retailers and brands, Louis Vuitton sees it as “creating an intelligent layer to super-power our client advisors,” said Hadjali.
“Agentic commerce is about being where [customers] are and being relevant at the right moment,” Hadjali added, but she also noted that agentic AI “is changing our industry, and sooner than we expected.”
Another way LVMH is ensuring humans are driving the AI train is the company’s commitment to responsible AI development, including strong governance and responsible officers at the group level. “Why do we do this? It’s for the trust of every employee in the group — and even more important, for clients to continue to always trust our brands,” said de Pirey.
