Facing softening demand and more cautious consumers, LVMH is relying on artificial intelligence to help navigate what it calls a tougher luxury market. “The market is becoming tougher for everyone,” Franck Le Moal, LVMH’s Group IT and Technology Director, told the WSJ. The conglomerate has built a centralized data platform with Google Cloud to house information across its 75 brands, using AI to optimize supply chain planning, pricing, product design, marketing, and personalization. “We are spending a significant amount in technology,” Le Moal noted, calling tech “mandatory to become super-efficient and at the same time keep the spirit and the essence of luxury.”
> “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,” Le Moal said.
Now, internal AI agents – seemingly stemming from MaIA, an internal AI chatbot that LVMH developed in collaboration with Stanford University’s Institute for Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence and rolled out in 2024 – are also helping sales staff to answer complex questions and craft personalized customer interactions. Even still, “We don’t plan to put chatbots on all our websites,” Le Moal said. “These are luxury sites, after all, and we prefer human interaction.”
The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) is set to hear its first preliminary reference addressing the intersection of generative AI and EU copyright law in Case C-250/25, Like Company v Google. The case, referred from Hungary, concerns allegations that Google’s Gemini chatbot generated outputs identical or substantially similar to press articles published by Like Company, without authorization.
The CJEU has been asked to clarify several legal questions central to EU copyright law: whether such AI-generated outputs constitute a reproduction or a communication to the public under Directive 2001/29/EC (the InfoSoc Directive) and Directive (EU) 2019/790 (the DSM Directive); whether the ingestion and processing of protected works during the training of large language models constitutes an act of reproduction; and whether such acts are permissible under the text and data mining (TDM) exception set out in Article 4 of the DSM Directive.
A decision – unlikely to be delivered before 2026 – is expected to carry significant implications for licensing frameworks, the scope of permitted AI training practices, and the enforcement of copyright in the context of AI-generated content. The case follows Germany’s Kneschke v LAION decision, which addressed the narrower question of whether dataset creation for scientific research purposes falls within the scope of the TDM exception under Article 3 of the DSM Directive, underscoring the broader legal questions now pending before the CJEU.
Amazon announced a new partnership with Rebag this week, marking a significant step in the retail behemoth’s slow but steady expansion into the luxury sector. By bringing nearly 30,000 pre-owned designer items to Luxury Stores at Amazon by way of Rebag, Amazon is strengthening its presence in the fast-growing luxury resale market – a space that has traditionally operated outside Amazon’s core marketplace.
The move builds on Amazon’s existing high-end fashion efforts, including a partnership with Saks – which brings wares from Dolce & Gabbana, Oscar de la Renta, Balmain, etc. to the Amazon platform – and a tie-up with reseller What Goes Around Comes, which means that Chanel and Louis Vuitton bags can be bought on Amazon. Crucially, many of these brands would not partner directly with Amazon to sell new inventory, which means that collaborations with resale platforms like Rebag and WGACA give Amazon indirect access to luxury names that have historically kept the e-commerce giant at arm’s length.
As consumers grow increasingly comfortable with secondhand purchases and as many top luxury brands remain staunchly opposed to resale endeavors, Amazon is staking out territory in a growing market.
As regulatory scrutiny on sustainability intensifies and raw material supplies grow increasingly strained, Chanel has announced a new venture: Nevold, a standalone, business-to-business circular materials platform. According to the luxury goods brand, Nevold aims “to build industrial and academic partnerships that accelerate the creation of large-scale solutions for the recycling, development and commercialization of innovative, high-quality materials incorporating recycled fibers for the fashion and luxury goods industries, and more broadly for the textile and leather industries.”
“For Chanel, it’s the third pillar,” Chanel SAS president of fashion Bruno Pavlovsky said, referring to Nevold’s place alongside the brand’s core fashion and manufacturing arms. By consolidating several of its existing recycling investments, including L’Atelier des Matières and Filatures du Parc, Chanel aims to scale the reuse of luxury materials like cashmere, wool, silk, and leather.
A Read Between the Lines: While Nevold is being positioned as a bold step toward industry-wide sustainability, at its core, the venture is almost certainly a strategic move to secure Chanel’s long-term material sourcing and reduce its reliance on external suppliers whose practices may expose the brand to shortages and/or reputational or regulatory vulnerabilities.
> One of the key quotes from Pavlovsky is this: “We have decided to stop many of our suppliers because we cannot have the right confidence behind them.”
The timing is not accidental. The EU is steadily advancing sustainability directives, including digital product passports and traceability mandates that will require luxury brands to disclose material origins and environmental impacts with far more granularity. By controlling a greater share of its material inputs, Chanel is building both operational flexibility and a hedge against increasingly complex compliance requirements.
Publicly, Chanel frames Nevold as part of its broader commitment to transparency and innovation. Already, 30% of its handbags and 50% of its shoes incorporate recycled leather reinforcements, with a stated goal of eliminating plastics entirely. “In a couple of years, we’ll be able to have no plastic at all in our shoes and in our bags,” Pavlovsky said. But behind the sustainability language lies a pragmatic recognition: controlling the material pipeline may soon be as critical to luxury houses as controlling brand image or retail distribution.