Luxury: clients adopt AI faster than brands, and the boutique advisor becomes the issue
According to Bain & Company and Comité Colbert, 82% of the top-spending luxury clients used AI at their last purchase, while 9% of houses have scaled AI support for their advisors.
The 2026 Luxury and Technology report by Bain & Company and Comité Colbert (30 June 2026) measures a gap: 22% of houses rank AI among their top three strategic priorities (5% in 2024), yet fewer than 20% of executives see a significant impact.
On the client side the lead is clear: 82% of top-spending clients used AI at their last purchase versus 28% in the lowest-spending segment, and 47% of in-store buyers used it before visiting. On the brand side, only 9% have scaled AI support for advisors with measurable impact; 22% are getting first results.
Economic reading: the most profitable client walks into the boutique already informed, having compared options. The advisor's edge shifts from information to interpretation and relationship. That relational work is precisely the labor whose cost per hour does not fall: this is Baumol's logic, where labor-intensive services see their relative cost rise. A copilot does not replace the advisor; it frees relational time and prepares the visit.
Cardan-AI recommendation: for a luxury house, first measure what the advisor does in the first 10 minutes with an already-informed client. Pilot a copilot in one boutique with a single indicator (revenue per advisory hour on high-potential clients) and decide on rollout from that figure, not from usage counts.
Analysis by
Cardan-AI Intelligence
Our research and analysis unit, dedicated to applied AI for business, industry and regulatory compliance.
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