PARIS — When LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton revealed in 2021 that it was partnering with Google Cloud to ramp up its AI capabilities, few could have predicted just how quickly the technology would revolutionize every aspect of its business.
Fast-forward four years, and cloud-based AI solutions underpin virtually every transaction made by the world’s biggest luxury group, which recorded revenues of 84.7 billion euros in 2024.
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“Today, our forecasting, budget planning, sales planning, distribution planning, merchandising planning, and even production planning, are all units augmented by applications that use algorithms,” said Franck Le Moal, group IT and technology director at LVMH.
In order to ringfence its data, LVMH created its own chatbot, MaIA, which handles 1.5 million requests a month from 40,000 users, according to company data.
Though it likes to refer to itself as a “quiet tech” company, LVMH continues to work with Google to develop new applications for AI and genAI, and — increasingly — agentic AI, which is shaping up as one of the buzzwords of this year’s Viva Tech trade fair in Paris, which runs from Wednesday to Saturday.
The latter refers to AI systems that can act autonomously toward goals, often taking initiative, making plans and executing tasks across time.
For now, LVMH uses agents for internal purposes only, Le Moal told WWD in a joint interview with Anthony Cirot, Google Cloud’s vice president for the Europe, Middle East and Africa South region.
Le Moal cited the example of a retail agent at fashion brand Celine, capable of answering complex queries from sales associates, and a client outreach agent for jeweler Tiffany & Co. that helps them craft more personalized messages.
“We don’t plan to put chatbots on all our websites,” he noted. “These are luxury sites, after all, and we prefer human interaction.”
LVMH is also guarded about Google’s moves to harness AI with new functions that act like a personal shopper.
The tech giant’s new experimental AI Mode, introduced last month, allows consumers in the U.S. to test features that make more sophisticated personalized recommendations.
The agentic checkout automatically tracks prices on the selected product listing. It not only notifies users when the item becomes available at their preferred price, but can also complete checkout on their behalf.
“We haven’t yet made up our minds about this. We’ll see. But I’m not sure it’s a good idea to have assistants systematically crawling our web platforms to buy luxury products,” Le Moal said.
Cirot said there are plenty of other new functionalities to explore in future, among them improved search functionality using natural language processing, and virtual try-on technology. The partnership with LVMH has benefited from the leaps in AI in the last two years.
“We’ve seen an acceleration of technologies with genAI, where an application that required around 12 months to 18 months to develop, sometimes with a terrible tunnel effect, can now be delivered in a week,” he said.
Cirot lauded LVMH as a “pioneer” for understanding early the importance of building a strong data corpus.
“We knew that it would very quickly be important to have structured data in the cloud because what customers want to do, and what LVMH is already doing, is to talk to their data,” he said.
LVMH has trained some 1,500 data experts over the last four years, ranging from data scientists to analysts, engineers and architects, Le Moal reported. A further 15,000 employees have been through its “Data and AI Academy.”
“The link between the different professions and IT has become much closer, and much more satisfying, too,” Cirot remarked. “We can serve them much faster, and we’re very close to the different departments.”
One area where LVMH and Google have stepped up their efforts is security, following a series of cyber attacks on U.K. retailers including Marks & Spencer and Harrods, and data breaches at luxury brands like Cartier and Dior, the latter of which is owned by LVMH.
Google’s Threat Intelligence Group recently warned that the U.S. retail sector is also being targeted in ransomware and extortion operations.
“There has been an absolutely exponential growth in cyber risk in recent months,” said Le Moal. “This is a constant concern for us. Protecting our customers’ data is of utmost importance.”
Despite a global downturn in luxury spending that has hit budgets across the industry, LVMH is bolstering investment in cybersecurity, he said.
“But it’s a game of cops and robbers, and it’s an ongoing battle,” he said. “Unfortunately, despite our best efforts, all you need is the occasional tiny flaw in the system to benefit this increasingly large-scale cyber crime industry. This is a challenge for all businesses, including luxury.”
Google has beefed up its cybersecurity capabilities, namely through the 2022 acquisition of cyber defense and response vendor Mandiant.
“Our philosophy at Google is what we call zero trust, which applies to all the applications we develop,” said Cirot. The cloud security model is based on the idea that no person or device should be trusted by default, even if they are already inside an organization’s network.
With shrinking demand and geopolitical turmoil roiling luxury stocks, technology will be key to gaining an edge over the competition, said Le Moal.
In a volatile environment, luxury brands will rely increasingly on AI and genAI to retain customers, recruit new clients, optimize their supply chain to curb over-production, direct products to the right locations and minimize returns, he said.
But with big tech increasingly shaping government policy, the stakes now go far beyond a single sector, Le Moal noted.
“Technology has become an issue of sovereignty. We have to adapt to Chinese sovereignty, and potentially soon to European sovereignty,” he said. “With all due respect for my partners at Google, we’re also increasingly vigilant about a form of American sovereignty.”
Google has anticipated potential evolutions by establishing trusted cloud solutions, for instance through its joint venture with French defense and technology firm Thales. “Already, for example, everything we do today with LVMH is encrypted,” Cirot said.
“There is anxiety in the market on this topic,” he recognized. “So we are ready, we have different possible scenarios to support customers and we will follow the regulation and discussions.”
With the U.S accounting for 24 percent of LVMH’s revenues in the first quarter, the threat of trade tariffs looms large over its immediate fortunes. LVMH chairman and chief executive officer Bernard Arnault has urged the European Union to make concessions in its trade talks with the administration of U.S. President Donald Trump.
“These issues also have the potential to impact our business, and there again, it’s crucial to have the best tools to be as responsive as we can in adapting our retail and production capacities,” Le Moal said.
At Viva Tech, LVMH plans to showcase collaborations between 11 of its luxury maisons — which include Guerlain, Tag Heuer, Louis Vuitton and Loro Piana — and 13 technology partners under the banner “LVMH Dreamscape: Where Stories Connect.”
One of its houses will present an agent that can automatically generate marketing content while respecting the brand’s tone of voice. Its Moët Hennessy wines and spirits division will highlight a collaboration with start-up Hiphen, which uses AI to analyze crops.
There will also be a big focus on 3-D, which is crucial in the creative industries, Le Moal said. He noted that design teams are also using genAI to create mood boards and iterate products, though LVMH is committed to an ethical use of the technology that does not replace human input.
“A strong theme of Viva Tech will be the use and integration of these AI and genAI technologies into everyday life,” he said. “Unlike the metaverse, which was a flash-in-the-pan, we’re talking about a profound transformation that’s here to stay.”
