craftsmanship
30 articles about craftsmanship in AI news
DeMellier grows by leaning into craftsmanship and alternative materials as
DeMellier founder Mireia Llusia-Lindh explains how focusing on craftsmanship, alternative materials, and controlled growth is driving demand, with Lyst searches up 97% YoY. The strategy echoes broader shifts at Kering and Bottega Veneta as the luxury sector loses 70 million customers due to value concerns.
Michaels Launches 'Ask Mike' AI-Powered Shopping Assistant Built on Google Cloud
Michaels launched 'Ask Mike,' an AI shopping assistant on Google Cloud using Gemini models. The tool helps customers find products and get project ideas, potentially reducing search friction in craft retail.
Under Armour Drops Solid Gold Rings for Spain World Cup Winners
Under Armour collaborates with Hoorsenbuhs and 424 on solid gold rings for Spain's World Cup winners. Luxury sports memorabilia without disclosed pricing.
AI now at top of agenda for more luxury houses: Bain report
Bain & Company reports that AI is now a top priority for an increasing number of luxury houses, signaling a major strategic shift. This matters as luxury brands move to integrate AI for personalization, operations, and customer experience.
ShamlaTech Launches AI Agent for Shopify
ShamlaTech launched an AI agent for Shopify, WooCommerce, and Magento stores in the U.S., automating customer service, order management, and inventory. This matters as it offers mid-market merchants accessible agentic commerce capabilities.
Dassault Systèmes expands AI PLM to LVMH, Carrefour and Walmart
Dassault Systèmes is expanding its AI-powered PLM to LVMH, Carrefour, and Walmart. This marks a major enterprise AI deployment in retail and luxury, embedding intelligence into product design, supply chain, and personalization.
Bain & Comité Colbert Report: Luxury Shoppers Adopt AI Faster Than Brands Adapt
A Bain & Company and Comité Colbert report finds luxury shoppers adopting AI for discovery faster than brands. It calls AI a strategic priority for reinventing customer experience.
AI emerges as a strategic priority for luxury as accelerating consumer use
A Bain & Company and Comité Colbert report declares AI a strategic priority for luxury brands, driven by accelerating consumer use that challenges the industry to reinvent customer discovery and experience. This matters as luxury houses face pressure to integrate AI without diluting brand exclusivity.
Germany's Zalando expands virtual fitting room technology
Zalando is expanding its virtual fitting room technology to help customers better visualize apparel fit online, aiming to reduce returns and improve the shopping experience. This move underscores the growing importance of AI-driven fit solutions in e-commerce.
Why Traditional Retail Metrics Break Down in Agentic Commerce
Valtech's 2026 research shows 96% of retailers face integration barriers, 48% are stuck in AI pilot purgatory, and nearly 75% can't link AI spend to metrics, as agentic commerce fragments customer journeys beyond traditional measurement frameworks.
Hermès Tops List of Luxury Brands in AI Search – WWD Report
WWD reports Hermès tops luxury brands in AI search visibility. A separate study warns LLMs misinterpret luxury brands, reducing their AI presence. This dual finding underscores the need for luxury houses to optimize for AI-driven discovery.
AI could unlock €320 billion for European retail, new analysis finds
A new fashionunited.uk analysis estimates AI could unlock up to €320 billion for European retail. The figure underscores AI's potential in automation, personalization, and supply chain optimization across the sector.
74% of Consumers Ready to Delegate Shopping to AI Agents, Study Finds
A study reports 74% of consumers are willing to let an AI agent shop for them. This signals a paradigm shift in retail, with growing trust in autonomous AI for purchasing decisions.
Instacart's Semantic IDs: Product Understanding at Scale
Instacart's engineering team details a semantic ID system for product understanding at scale, using embeddings to create meaningful identifiers that enhance search and recommendations. This approach captures nuanced product relationships, improving relevance for grocery e-commerce.
LLM-Based Customer Digital Twins Predict Preferences with 87.7% Accuracy
A new arXiv paper proposes using LLM-based 'customer digital twins' (CDTs) — agents built from individual Reddit review histories via RAG — to perform conjoint analysis. The CDTs predict actual user preferences with 87.73% accuracy in a computer monitor case study, offering a scalable alternative to traditional market research.
Guerlain Launches First Paid Influencer Campaign After Viral TikTok
Guerlain reports the Vanille Planifolia extrait became its #1 best-selling product for five months after organic TikTok videos, leading to the brand’s first paid influencer campaign. Sales tripled despite the $660 price, and the fragrance sold out multiple times.
Continuous Semantic Caching
Researchers propose a theory-grounded semantic caching system that treats user queries as points in a continuous embedding space, using dynamic ε-net discretization and kernel ridge regression to cut inference costs and latency without switching overhead.
Why AI and luxury retail go hand-in-hand — The Drum article explores the synergy
A new article from The Drum examines how artificial intelligence can enhance luxury retail experiences without diluting brand prestige. The exact arguments and examples are not accessible from the snippet.
Chief AI & Technology Officer Role Gains Traction in Luxury Sector
The luxury sector is formalizing AI leadership by establishing Chief AI and Technology Officer positions. This move reflects the industry's transition from ad-hoc AI initiatives to integrated, strategic technology governance at the highest level.
From Checkout to Trust Layer: How Merchants Can Prepare for Agentic Commerce
The article discusses the evolution of e-commerce from simple checkout processes to a future where AI shopping agents act on behalf of consumers. It argues that success in this 'agentic commerce' era depends on merchants building a robust trust layer with data security, transparency, and reliability at its core.
VoteGCL: A Novel LLM-Augmented Framework to Combat Data Sparsity in
A new paper introduces VoteGCL, a framework that uses few-shot LLM prompting and majority voting to create high-confidence synthetic data for graph-based recommendation systems. It integrates this data via graph contrastive learning to improve accuracy and mitigate bias, outperforming existing baselines.
Fine-Tuning vs RAG: A Foundational Comparison for AI Strategy
The source provides a foundational comparison of fine-tuning and Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) for enhancing AI models. It uses the analogy of teaching during training versus providing a book during an exam, clarifying their distinct roles in AI application development.
Dick's Sporting Goods Partners with Adobe to Launch Agentic AI 'Digital Coaches'
Dick's Sporting Goods announced a partnership with Adobe to implement agentic AI 'digital coaches.' These AI agents will provide personalized guidance to customers, aiming to enhance the shopping experience and drive sales.
RAG vs Fine-Tuning vs Prompt Engineering
A technical blog clarifies that Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG), fine-tuning, and prompt engineering should be viewed as a layered stack, not mutually exclusive options. It provides a decision framework for when to use each technique based on specific needs like data freshness, task specificity, and cost.
Forbes Reports on Luxury Brands' Quiet AI Adoption
A Forbes article examines the strategic, often non-public, integration of AI by luxury brands. The focus is on practical applications in customer experience, operations, and design, marking a shift from experimentation to embedded utility.
Fanuc robot arms combine AI and computer vision to adopt flexible workflows
Fanuc has updated its robot arms with AI and computer vision, enabling them to handle flexible workflows rather than fixed, repetitive tasks. This shift allows for greater adaptability in manufacturing environments.
Rethinking the Necessity of Adaptive Retrieval-Augmented Generation
Researchers propose AdaRankLLM, a framework that dynamically decides when to retrieve external data for LLMs. It reduces computational overhead while maintaining performance, shifting adaptive retrieval's role based on model strength.
Four Seasons Kuala Lumpur Deploys AI to Personalize Luxury Event Experiences
The Four Seasons Kuala Lumpur is introducing AI to create personalized event experiences, from tailored menus to dynamic ambiance. This is part of a broader trend where luxury hotels are testing AI as a tool for deeper guest engagement and service differentiation.
Ethan Mollick on AI's Impact: 'Everything Is Someone's Life Work' No Longer True
AI researcher Ethan Mollick notes the foundational assumption that 'everything around me is somebody's life work' is being invalidated by generative AI, signaling a profound shift in how we value human output.
TRACE: A Multi-Agent LLM Framework for Sustainable Tourism Recommendations
A new research paper introduces TRACE, a modular LLM-based framework for conversational travel recommendations. It uses specialized agents to elicit sustainability preferences and generate 'greener' alternatives through interactive explanations, aiming to reduce overtourism and carbon-intensive travel.