Paris, the hallowed ground of haute couture and timeless elegance, recently played host to a different kind of revolution, one powered not by atelier craftsmanship but by unseen algorithms and predictive analytics.
At VivaTech, the annual technology fair, it became abundantly clear that artificial intelligence has transcended its status as a mere buzzword within the luxury industry, cementing its position as an indispensable engine driving everything from hyper-personalized consumer journeys to the very creation of digital content.
This shift was dramatically underscored at the 2025 LVMH Innovation Award Ceremony, a flagship event within VivaTech that served as a powerful testament to the conglomerate’s deep commitment to technological advancement.
Gone are the days when luxury brands viewed tech with cautious skepticism; today, they are actively shaping its application, seeking solutions that deliver tangible return on investment and align with their exacting standards of excellence.
The streamlined format of this year’s awards, focusing on specific projects co-developed with Maisons, highlighted a pragmatic approach: innovation for purpose.
Among the laureates, US-based Kahoona took home the coveted Best Business Prize for its transformative collaboration with Dior.
Kahoona’s real-time predictive audience segmentation solution, designed for anonymized online visitors, elevates personalized customer experience to an unprecedented level.
CEO Gal Rapoport’s description of his AI technology “recognizing various criteria including customer intent, demographic and price point via ‘pattern recognition’ within digital body language and actioning these insights to route and optimize every customer journey” paints a vivid picture.
This isn’t just about knowing what a customer bought; it’s about anticipating their desires, understanding their digital footprint as a subtle language, and then curating an experience so seamless it feels intuitively bespoke.
For luxury, where personal connection is paramount, this digital intimacy is a game-changer.
Beyond the pursuit of commercial growth, AI is also being harnessed for a greater good.
French startup Genesis secured the Best Impact Prize for its pioneering work with Moët Hennessy, developing a data-driven digital tool to measure, monitor, and improve soil health.
In an era where sustainability is no longer an option but an imperative, particularly for brands rooted in natural resources like vineyards, this application of AI is profoundly significant.
It showcases how technology can underpin environmental stewardship, offering a blueprint for replication across LVMH’s vast ecosystem and demonstrating a genuine commitment to responsible luxury.
Perhaps one of the most visible and widely adopted use cases for AI in luxury has emerged in the realm of content creation.
The Most Promising Prize went to OMI, a French pioneer in 3D AI, for its collaboration with Guerlain.
Co-founder and CEO Hugo Borensztein touts his content creation studio as a more speedy and cost-effective way to generate high-quality visuals from 3D models.
OMI’s reach extends further, collaborating with the L’Oréal Group within its Generative AI content platform, CREAITECH.
L’Oréal’s broader ambitions in this space were also highlighted at VivaTech, announcing a strategic partnership with NVIDIA to unlock AI’s potential across multiple facets of beauty.
This collaboration leverages the NVIDIA AI Enterprise platform for rapid development and deployment of AI, promising to scale 3D digital product rendering and enable “personalized marketing and advertising that improve consumer engagement and conversion.”
The sheer volume of high-quality visual content required to fuel global luxury campaigns is staggering, and AI offers a scalable, efficient solution without compromising on the visual fidelity demanded by these brands.
Nowhere was this more evident than at the LVMH Dreamscape pavilion, where Louis Vuitton unveiled a groundbreaking innovation from Paris-based studio Ok C’est Cool.
This proprietary generative AI-powered content creation tool leverages LoRA (low-rank adaptation) to teach AI to meticulously reproduce ultra-specific brand details, such as fabric textures.
The result? The ability to generate dozens of campaign-ready images in a single day, working in conjunction with pre-existing 3D models to impose variations with extreme fidelity.
As Ok C’est Cool co-founder Marc Horgues succinctly put it, while open-source technology democratizes rudimentary content reproduction, anything produced by LVMH must transcend the ordinary to conform to the Group’s unparalleled standard of excellence.
Crucially, Horgues emphasized that this internalized solution is paramount for preserving data sovereignty, a non-negotiable for luxury houses guarding their intellectual property and brand mystique.
Further showcasing AI’s versatility, Louis Vuitton also highlighted its partnership with Danish 3D scanning specialist Rigsters.
Meanwhile, Rimowa, the iconic luggage brand, unveiled its collaboration with French startup Solaya, focused on 2D and 3D content creation for its pre-loved RE-CRAFTED luggage line.
Solaya leverages a combination of AI and Gaussian Splatting to produce high-quality assets using a simple smartphone scan, a resource-lite approach that can be executed by anyone in the company, anywhere in the world.
This democratizes high-fidelity visual asset creation, making sustainable initiatives more accessible and visually appealing.
Beyond visual assets, AI is also safeguarding the very voice of luxury.
At Bulgari, Italian outfit Maize showcased its amalgamated AI technology for large language models (LLMs), developing a bespoke educational and conversational solution.
This technology optimizes the brand’s written content, ensuring tone of voice integrity across all mediums of communication.
In an increasingly fragmented digital landscape, maintaining a consistent, authentic brand voice is critical, and AI is proving an invaluable guardian of this intangible asset.
Even within the extended LVMH family, AI’s influence is palpable.
The AI Startup Village featured Power XYZ, a Gen AI-powered 3D asset management platform working with affordable luxury accessories brand Polène, which recently secured investment from L Catterton, the LVMH/Arnault family-owned fund.
This demonstrates that AI’s transformative power is not limited to the pinnacle of haute luxury but is permeating all segments of the market, optimizing operations and enhancing consumer experiences across the board.
What emerges from VivaTech is a compelling narrative: AI is not just automating tasks; it is enabling luxury brands to redefine personalization, enhance sustainability, and scale creative output while fiercely protecting their unique identity and data.
The future of luxury, it seems, will be a sophisticated dance between timeless heritage and cutting-edge intelligence, orchestrated by algorithms designed to uphold the very essence of exclusivity and excellence.
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