Luxury Intelligence

AI deployment is consolidating into the hands of giants, and luxury operators need to stop waiting for the trickle-down. Microsoft is now committing $2.5 billion and 6,000 staff to a dedicated AI implementation unit, while Anthropic is already building custom chips with Samsung and launching new Claude Science models. Square’s agentic commerce tools, built on ChatGPT and Claude, are rolling out to sellers at scale. The promise is that these tools will be available to all, but in practice, the cost and complexity of real AI integration are rising, not falling.

The evidence is clear: as Microsoft and Anthropic race to build proprietary infrastructure, and Square arms merchants with agentic commerce, the technical and financial barriers for smaller brands are getting steeper. Even in beauty, scaling is getting harder, not easier, as seen with small brands squeezed by rising costs and stricter retail demands. The strongest objection is that AI is supposed to democratize access, but when deployment depends on billion-dollar partnerships and custom silicon, the playing field tilts further toward incumbents.

For luxury and jewellery, this means waiting for "plug and play" AI is a losing bet. Operators should prioritize partnerships with tech-forward vendors, invest in proprietary data, and push for early access to new AI tools, before the gap between leaders and laggards becomes unbridgeable.