Luxury brands face faster shift to AI-assisted shopping

AI has moved up the luxury agenda, with Bain & Company and Comité Colbert reporting that 22% of luxury houses and groups now rank it among their top three corporate priorities for the next three years, compared with only 5% in 2024. Another 61% place it among their top ten priorities, up from 50% in 2024. Multi-brand groups and houses with revenues exceeding €5 billion are described as having clearer strategies than smaller or independent players.

Consumers appear to be moving faster than brands. AI use in recent luxury purchase journeys was particularly high in China (64%) and the US (54%), while France stood at 27%. Top-tier customers were the heaviest users, with 82% using AI in their most recent purchase, versus 28% in the lowest spending segment. Nearly half (47%) of in-store shoppers used AI before visiting a boutique, and 97% said they intend to use AI again.

Deployment inside luxury groups remains uneven. Adoption in support functions rose from 6% in 2024 to 31% in 2026, and operational functions increased from 10% to 19%; customer-facing functions rose more slowly from 16% in 2024 to 21% in 2026. fewer than 20% of executives have seen significant impact, underscoring a gap between pilots and scaled transformation.

Visibility in generative AI engines is emerging as a competitive issue. Approximately 70% of luxury-related prompts do not name a brand, 75% are discovery- or comparison-oriented, and 90% of URLs cited by large language models come from outside brand-owned sites. Bain and Comité Colbert identified conversational e-commerce, personalization, advisor copilots and next-generation CRM as key areas, but only 9% of houses have deployed AI assistance for client advisors at scale with measurable impact.