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New research from Bain & Co. finds affluent consumers are rapidly embracing generative AI for discovery, comparison and purchase decisions.

PARIS — Luxury brands may be accelerating their adoption of AI, but customers are way ahead.

That is the key finding of a new study titled “Winning Over the Customer in the Age of AI: A New Horizon for Luxury,” that found a widening gap between what the industry is building and how consumers are already behaving.

The report, conducted by Bain & Co. for France’s Comité Colbert luxury association, said AI is already reshaping how luxury customers discover brands, do research and decide on purchases, well before most brands are ready to engage.

“The clients have moved faster than the maisons,” said Joelle de Montgolfier, executive vice president, global retail and luxury at Bain & Co.

The organizations studied luxury consumers in China, France and the U.S., in April and found that 64 percent of Chinese, 54 percent of U.S.-based and 27 percent of French luxury consumers said they used AI tools to facilitate their most recent luxury purchase within the last three months.

It also noted that usage is highest among top spenders, not entry-level or aspirational consumers. Eighty-two percent of very heavy spenders used AI, while 67 percent of heavy spenders, 51 percent of moderate spenders and only 28 percent of light spenders said they used AI for luxury purchases within the first three months of 2026.

Consumers said they are embracing this shift. According to the study, 97 percent of respondents said they plan to use AI tools again for future purchases.

The most cited benefit, from roughly seven in 10 respondents, is that it “helps me decide faster and more objectively.” Others highlighted discovering options they would not have considered and gaining reassurance on quality, sizing and craftsmanship.

According to Bain’s data, the luxury sector has lost roughly 70 million active customers since the post-pandemic shopping boom of 2022, even as the global pool of affluent consumers continues to expand.

“The addressable base is growing, but the active base is shrinking,” said de Montgolfier.

The tech has moved out of the experimental phase and is now a key part of the discovery journey and embedded in the earliest stages of a luxury purchase.

However, these tools are not being used to search for specific products. They are being used much earlier and used for exploration and inspiration.

Consumers are turning to AI tools “without a preconceived brand in mind,” said Bain & Co. senior partner for retail, fashion and luxury Nathalie Remy. Instead, they are using them as stylists, and comparison tools.

“They are ready to let AI play its role of adviser — whether for stylistic opinions, inspiration, or simply narrowing down what they didn’t even know they were looking for,” she said. That means the conversational AI engines help shape a buyer’s intent and desires, with discovery starting inside the LLM systems that curate a shortlist of items and criteria before a maison is ever considered.

That change is fundamental for luxury, as consumers increasingly begin with open-ended prompts and not brand names, by asking for gift ideas, styling guidance or product suggestions within a specific budget and letting LLMs determine what is on their list.

“Seventy percent of AI prompts don’t mention a brand at all. The engines are choosing which brands consumers discover,” said de Montgolfier. That shift, she said, represents a fundamental change in how luxury brands earn visibility, moving power away from paid search and toward AI-generated recommendations.

“The battle being fought today is GEO,” said Remy, of generative engine optimization. “That’s where brands will win or lose visibility with the next generation of luxury consumers.”

Traditional names may no longer have the same advantages.

“Being big, being powerful, being rich is no longer enough to emerge in AI search,” Remy said. “Some of the largest luxury houses are under-indexed in AI responses, while much smaller specialist brands are outperforming their weight.”

In categories such as watches and skin care, specialist brands are frequently referenced more than diversified luxury groups despite having a fraction of their sales, she said. “A handful of strong customer reviews can suddenly give a small luxury brand exposure that money couldn’t buy before.”

That is largely because AI models are drawing from a very different information ecosystem than conventional search engines, with 90 percent looking at “offsite” information.

“It’s not your brand website. It’s editorial coverage, customer reviews, blogs, and everything people say about you elsewhere,” said de Montgolfier. Earned media, third-party editorial, resale platforms, consumer reviews, and other external signals are once again emerging as being more influential than how many luxury marketers have operated in recent years.

Remy argued that this also demands a different mindset from an industry long accustomed to controlling its narrative. “Luxury has always been an industry that pushes stories out,” she said. “Now brands have to listen to what consumers are actually asking AI, because prompts contain context, not just keywords.”

Unlike traditional search, where optimization revolved around individual terms, AI queries often resemble conversations, capturing motivations, occasions, budgets, style preferences, and concerns in a single request. The platforms’ ecosystems capture that information, though brands have an opportunity to create their own chats to regain insight into customer intent.

The report also highlighted luxury’s culture of perfection, in comparison with the Wild West state of AI’s adoption speed.

“By the time we’ve developed a tool, secured legal approval, image approval, and every internal signoff, the technology has already moved on,” Remy said, describing a challenge echoed by many of the luxury executives surveyed.

Rather than pursuing endless pilots, she argued, brands should focus on launching a smaller number of meaningful AI initiatives, measuring their impact, and iterating as the technology evolves.

That acceleration, however, should not come at the expense of brand identity.

“AI can augment luxury, but it cannot replace what makes a luxury house unique,” Remy said. “The brands that succeed will be the ones that remain true to their DNA while embracing new technology.”

The report also cautions that with the constantly evolving pace of AI absorbing new information, brands can no longer rely on static — if beautiful — websites, but need to feed it a constant stream of new editorial, reviews, and feedback from an engaged community to remain visible in GEO search.

“Google had no expiration date. Large language models do,” Remy said. “If you stop publishing fresh content, you disappear much faster.”

De Montgolfier drove home the point that luxury maisons must adapt. “If you’re not visible in AI recommendations, you risk disappearing from consumers’ consideration set altogether,” she said.

Strategic and financial investors are vying for the leather goods brand via a court-supervised process in Paris.

Moreau Paris, a storied 19th-century French trunkmaker born during the same fizzy era as Louis Vuitton, Goyard and Moynat, is about to change hands — again.

Strategic and financial investors are vying for the leather goods house via a court-supervised process under way in Paris, according to Richard Morgan, whose investment advisory is representing Asteren, the liquidator.

Up for grabs are all key brand assets for Moreau, famed for its wicker-inspired monogram, introduced in 1882.

The sale process commenced in June and binding offers are due by July 9, with the Paris Commercial Court revealing the victor shortly thereafter, according to Morgan.

It is understood the court considers the offer price, the financial capacity of the bidder and the development plan.

“We currently have well over 30 serious candidates and are receiving calls every day,” Morgan told WWD exclusively. “We have received huge interest from strategic and financial investors across Europe, Asia and North America. Interest has come from luxury groups, manufacturers, distributors, private equity and [high-net worth individuals] with direct experience in consumer brands.”

Founded by the descendants of master cabinetmaker Louis Moreau, who first established his business on the Rue Saint-Honoré in 1764, Moreau Paris went dormant at the beginning of the 20th century and was revived in 2010 by entrepreneur Veronika Rovnoff and her brother Fedor Georges Savchenko.

Onward Luxury Group acquired Moreau in 2016 and accelerated its international expansion, opening a flagship on the Rue du Faubourg Saint-Honoré and growing brand awareness in Japan.

A group of retail entrepreneurs, led by a majority investor in Japan, bought Moreau from Onward in 2020, and opted for a court-supervised sale when protracted negotiations with a landlord spiraled into a larger process.

“The court-supervised framework, although a constraint in the short term, makes the deal more attractive for investors,” Morgan said. “Organized as an asset sale, the court-controlled procedure offers prospective buyers a clear path to acquiring the IP and all relating assets debt free.

“The process simplifies the holding structure, with all assets put directly under a new owner, facilitating the strategy going forward,” he added.

According to Morgan, Moreau had north of 10 million euros in annual sales in recent years amid strong demand for leather goods globally.

Roughly 80 percent of revenues have been generated outside of Europe via three directly operated stores in Japan — where sales grew 30 percent between 2022 and 2025 — and franchise boutiques in Mexico City, Manila in the Philippines and Houston, where a boutique opened last December.

The Paris boutique is temporarily closed pending the decision of the court.

Morgan characterized the sale as a rare opportunity to acquire “an established Paris luxury house with genuine heritage, an international presence and a distinctive monogram identity.”

The sale includes trademarks, intellectual property, the distribution network, digital assets, inventories,

collections and a Japanese subsidiary, according to Morgan.

Moreau markets leather bags, like its top-handle Sophie model, plus monogram canvas or leather tote bags, which are manufactured in Italy.

As an offshoot of its AZ Academy post-graduate education program, the Swiss luxury group will accompany six emerging talents in producing and selling their collections at a Paris pop-up this fall.

It doesn’t quite have the ring of The Antwerp Six.

But the latest evolution of Richemont’s AZ Academy initiative — A Bunch of Designers — is giving six emerging fashion talents a serious leg up as they move from their education phase to business realities.

All graduates of AZ Academy, a one-year postgraduate program that debuted last year as a tribute to the late Alber Elbaz, the six are receiving additional operational support, coaching and strategic guidance from the Swiss luxury group to produce commercial capsule collections for a one-month retail pop-up that will debut during Paris Fashion Week this fall.

“We felt like some projects were too good to be just left on their own, so we decided to go another step with them,” Philippe Fortunato, chief executive officer of Richemont’s fashion and accessories maisons, said in an exclusive interview. “We put them in contact with industrial partners, we financed their prototyping, product development and collection, and we will be helping them to sell their collections.”

In short, Richemont is accompanying the six in their last mile before launch — while stopping short of taking stakes in their fledgling businesses.

“We realized that what they needed is further coaching and companionship,” Fortunato said.

The “bunch” are: Rome-based womenswear designer Caterina Moro, whose brand is rooted in nature and art; Spanish designer Brais Albor, who is targeting the “bear community” of men who don’t fit standard sizes; Liwen Liang, who makes handbags and dresses decorated with thin tiles of ceramic, inspired by his family’s ceramic business in Jingdezhen, China; leather goods designer Manon Marcelot, who draws inspiration from her rustic upbringing in rural France; Merle Breuker, who incorporates flexible, adaptable elements into her modular designs, and Sandra Jao, whose mostly black womenswear prioritizes form, expressiveness and Japanese technical innovation.

The six are currently in the throes of launching production and fine-tuning promotional concepts in time for the Paris Fashion Week retail showcase, details of which are still under wraps.

“They will have the chance to promote, advocate for their brands, meet with customers, interact with them, show them the product, tell their personal story and the brand story that they are creating,” Fortunato enthused, lauding each designer’s “very interesting, unique and very distinct creative universes.”

Indeed, all are in the mold-breaking spirit of Elbaz, the acclaimed Israeli designer whose final venture, AZ Factory, centered on smart fabrics and with storytelling, problem-solving and entertainment embedded in design, distribution and communications.

Following Elbaz’s death in April 2021, AZ Factory evolved into a hub for serial collaborations before being transformed into AZ Academy. The experience helped Richemont, mostly known for its hard luxury brands headlined by Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels, connect with a new generation of designers, and understand the myriad challenges they face in building independent brands.

A Bunch of Designers reflects the group’s ongoing commitment to scouting and nurturing creative talents, primarily with education and coaching, Fortunato said.

“We really believe that the luxury of tomorrow is about craft — and bridging that world of business and that world of creativity, what I like to call the magic and the logic,” he told WWD.

While the Paris pop-up is consumer-facing, the participating designers can also invite potential wholesale accounts to come inspect their brand showcases, he noted.

The 19 students in the second cohort from AZ Academy are to finish their program — spanning classroom sessions, supplier visits and internships — in late November, and a screening committee will gather in August to sift through applications for the third year of the postgraduate program, with those lessons starting in January 2027.

A host of top Richemont brass, including Fortunato, Nicolas Bos, group CEO, and Anne Dellière, group marketing and strategic planning director, are implicated in the initiatives, even leveraging their network to introduce promising designers to potential business partners. Seasoned designer Lutz Huelle, who has been part of the AZ Factory story, will serve as an ambassador for the Bunch of Designers initiative.

“The craft is there, the entrepreneurship is there, the bold aspect of risk-taking from these young kids is to be noticed and accompanied,” Fortunato said. “Transmitting Alber’s vision into the modern world is very important.

“Out of the six, some of them could have a very successful business going forward,” he continued. “They all have all the ingredients, the talent, and the personality to be good fashion entrepreneurs.”

In a separate interview, Graziella Valtorta, executive director and CEO of the Creative Academy at Richemont, described AZ Academy as another expression of the group’s long-standing mission to find and prepare talents for its mostly hard luxury brands.

Since it was founded in 2004, the creative academy has trained more than 400 people, and some have gone on to top creative director roles for strategic categories at Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels, and for competitors too, like Prada, Valtorta noted.

Now the AZ Academy, based in Milan and in partnership with the Accademia Costume & Moda, thrusts it into fashion and leather goods, and helping entrepreneurs get their businesses up and running.

“By no means an easy task,” Valtorta commented. “But I find this ‘venture designer’ phase to be truly extraordinary because it allows them to put into practice what they learned during their master’s program.

“I’ve seen such enthusiasm, I’m hopeful for a great outcome,” Valtorta said. “They fully understand what needs to be done during this process.”

Training at AZ Academy: Business for Designers includes such key topics as finance, merchandising, pricing, distribution, production, communication and brand definition.

Valtorta said a few of the six are also in the midst of setting up new companies as they accompany their collections through the production processes.

Pin exited Tag Heuer in January after an 18-month tenure and previously led Bulgari’s watch business unit.

PARIS — De Bethune has tapped Antoine Pin as chief executive officer.

The Swiss watchmaker was founded in 2002 by Denis Flageollet and David Zanetta, the latter leaving the brand in 2017. Named after a French nobleman and precision horology buff of the Enlightenment era, the company is headquartered in L’Auberson, a village in the Jura mountains.

Flageollet said the new executive was coming in “with a profound respect for what we have built over the years.”

“From our very first conversations, I was struck by [Pin’s] understanding of our culture, our independence and our vision of watchmaking,” the founder continued. “We share the same conviction: to preserve the essence of De Bethune while giving it every means to grow.”

Since its creation, De Bethune has developed 31 calibers and registered eight patents. A majority stake in the company was acquired in 2021 by American group WatchBox, which was renamed The 1916 Company in 2023.

Justin Reis, who is executive chairman and cofounder of The 1916 Company and serves as chairman of the board of De Bethune, said Flageollet has “pursued a deeply personal vision of watchmaking” through the brand.

“His independence of mind, his uncompromising standards and his determination to push the boundaries of creative expression have produced a maison unlike any other,” Reis added. “Antoine brings the experience, the sensitivity and the deep appreciation of craft that this next chapter demands. We are convinced that their complementary strengths will be a tremendous asset for the future — and the continued independence — of De Bethune.”

The new CEO said that “what has always fascinated [me] about De Bethune is the integrity of the approach and the intensity of its ambition.”

“Denis seeks to understand the world through watchmaking, and to express its beauty. That vision, joined to an uncompromising standard of horological mastery, has produced something truly singular,” Pin continued. “I am joining the maison with real humility and genuine enthusiasm — to contribute to its development, reinforce its foundations and support its long-term future, without ever compromising what gives De Bethune its strength and its identity.”

Most recently CEO of Tag Heuer, which he exited in January, Pin previously led Bulgari’s watch business unit. Prior to that, he was at Zenith, where he started as international marketing director before going on to manage some of its international markets, including the U.K., Japan and South Korea.

A graduate of the prestigious HEC Paris business school, the new De Bethune CEO began his career at Tag Heuer in 1994, before its acquisition by LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton, which he left to join Boucheron, then newly under Kering’s umbrella.

In his new role at De Bethune, Pin will “work to grow the maison and build the conditions for its sustainable future, in close partnership” with Flageollet, who served as interim CEO following the departure of Pierre Jacques, who logged a nine-month tenure at the brand before exiting last summer.

Nike Running is leading the Swoosh's turnaround.

Nike‘s running business has been a bright spot, but analysts still want to see more from the brand.

During the fourth quarter conference call Tuesday, chief executive officer Elliott Hill said “Running grew $5 billion — $1 billion over the last five quarters, and we gained five market share points.”

He also noted that those five quarters were “consecutive quarters of double-digit growth in Nike Running,” and that the points gained in the running market share in statement footwear during Fiscal Year 2026 across Western Europe and North America was “more than any other top five brand.”

Building on that momentum, Hill said Nike launched the After Dark Tour in Shanghai, which will reach seven cities this fall.

“Last year, 50,000 runners joined and one-third were first-time runners. And with our expanded reach, we expect even more impact,” Hill said. “Being more local matters. It deepens connection, it builds loyalty and it creates a pull makret for our brands and products.”

Hill added: “As we strengthen Nike Inc.’s foundation, we’re taking decisive action across our supply chain to lower cost, streamline operations and rightsize our distribution network to match the demand ahead.”

While the Nike Running playbook has led the way in its turnaround efforts, Hill also spoke about efforts to sharpen its focus with consumers.

“We’ve had great response with the sharp, sharp focus on the consumer, whether it’s product, whether it’s in the investments we’ve made on the ground in retail,” he said, citing to the growth in Nike Running as proof that focus strategy is working.

For the three months ended May 31, net income was $1..07 billion, or 72 cents a diluted share, from $211 million, or 14 cents, in the same year-ago period. Revenues slipped 1 percent to $10.97 billion from $11.1 billion. Total Nike brand revenues — including sales of Jordan Brand shoes — for footwear slipped 1 percent to $7.10 billion from $7.19 billion in the same year-ago quarter, and was down 4 percent excluding currency changes. For the full year, footwear revenue was essentially flat at $29.53 billion from $29.51 billion.

BNP Paribas analyst Laurent Vasilescu noted that for Nike Running, “We know from the prior earnings calls that running grew high-single-digit percent in the fourth quarter of Fiscal 2025, and over 20 percent in the [first three quarters] of Fiscal 2026 and then slowed to up middle-single digits in the [fourth quarter].”

While the category is just over $5 billion in revenue across the past five quarters, his estimate over a four-quarter basis is the Nike Running is at $4.4 billion, or 10 percent of overall company revenues.

“Nike Running was $4 billion on a wholesale equivalent basis in Fiscal Year 2021, which by our wholesale equivalent math gets us to $5.5 billion reported revenues,” he said. “Simply put, Nike Running is still not where it was in Fiscal Year 2021 despite years of inflation and a multi-year running boom.”

He believes that there’s “excessive hope in Nike turning around with just 10 percent of the business returning to where it was in Fiscal Year 2021,” and is hoping that Nike will provide more clarity when it holds its Investor Day in November.

Hill did say on the call that the company has dedicated teams in its Sport Offense initiative going against each consumer category from from basketball to football and other sports, noting that the company sees “momentum gaining in training, tennis, golf and outdoor.”

He also noted that in the second half of fiscal year 2027, which starts next January, the sportswear division “is going to introduce more than a dozen new footwear styles. And it’s not just going back to the Vault and doing old retro shoes. It is leveraging innovation, and you’ll see some newness and freshness coming in new silhouettes.”

Hill added that the team is moving quickly to reposition the business to be “more community-driven on the ground, working with local creators, authentic storytelling and product. We’re investing in accelerating our local product creation as well. You’ll see us leverage that more around the world.” He did note that it would take some time to scale up, but reiterated confidence that this repositioning was the right track.

Meanwhile, a new Vomero Plus 2 shoe is coming this fall. Other product introductions in the quarter inclded the Pegasus 42 running shoe and the latest iterations of the Mercurial soccer boot.

While Nike lowered its first half sales outlook, that should be offset by stronger gross margin. And Nike said gross profit is now expected to increase beginning in the fiscal first quarter, one quarter ahead of plan.

Nvidia competitor Etched announced this week that TSMC had manufactured its first chip earlier this year. While the four-year-old startup valued at $5 billion is getting ready to ship systems powered by that chip to customers later this summer, scaling production may prove challenging. Like other chip designers, Etched must compete for limited capacity at TSMC’s Taiwan factories.

Copper Sky Capital, one of Etched’s early investors, is hopeful that the chipmaker will find a solution to its manufacturing constraints by eventually producing chips at Arizona’s TSMC facility. When the four-year-old VC firm invested in Etched’s $120 million Series A two years ago, founder Jack Selby secured an allocation in part by promising to help the startup eventually reshore its chip fabrication to Arizona.

Selby, a former PayPal exec and longtime managing director to Peter Thiel’s family office, Thiel Capital, founded Phoenix-based Copper Sky in 2021 (formerly known as AZ-VC). The firm’s first $115 million fund focused primarily on startups based in Arizona and the Southwest. Selby’s thesis was that most coastal startups, particularly those based in California, Massachusetts, and New York, are grossly overpriced compared to companies popping up in his region. However, Selby saw an opportunity to bridge the gap in the other direction by helping California-based hardware startups move their production to Arizona.

Selby credits Copper Sky’s investment in Etched — an otherwise hard-to-access startup — to his influential role in Arizona’s economy. As a board member of the Arizona Commerce Authority, Selby is deeply involved in recruiting out-of-state businesses to set up manufacturing operations in the region.

“When Copper Sky invested with Etched, the company clearly understood our connectivity to the Arizona semiconductor industry, and in particular the local TSMC GIGAFAB,” Selby told TechCrunch.

While Copper Sky has recently expanded its focus beyond the Southwest to include nontraditional venture hubs nationwide, Selby said that the firm is also interested in backing hardware companies, including in the defense sector, that can set up manufacturing operations in Arizona.

The firm is expected to soon have more capital to invest in those higher-priced coastal companies, and those throughout the United States. Copper Sky is currently raising a $300 million second fund, according to a regulatory filing.

During this week’s meeting, Zuckerberg apparently commented on these job cuts — noting that they were not as “clean” as they should have been. The cuts were made because top officials at the company “were worried that we weren’t going to move fast enough ‌to adapt” to the changing landscape of the tech industry, Zuckerberg reportedly added.

The corporate leader also apparently said that the perceived upside of the new AI-focused company structure hadn’t “come to ​fruition yet,” although he said that he believed the company would begin to see improvements from its AI investments during the next three to six months. Several other investigative reports have depicted Meta’s months-old AI unit as a soul-crushing gulag, according to some of the engineers assigned to it.

Meta has invested heavily in AI and is expected to spend as much as $145 billion on AI infrastructure this year, Reuters reports.

TechCrunch reached out to Meta for comment.