Joelle Diderich
7 min read
In This Article:
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.
