At Glossy's annual Ecommerce Summit in New York, our Strategy Director Anika Lindstrom joined a panel of industry leaders to discuss the intersection of artificial intelligence and luxury retail.
The panel's central question was provocative: can AI enhance luxury, or does it inherently commodify it? The consensus was nuanced — AI excels at operational efficiency, personalisation at scale, and predictive inventory management. But it struggles with taste.
Anika's position was clear: AI should be invisible in luxury. The moment a customer feels they are interacting with an algorithm rather than a curator, the experience breaks. The best applications of AI in luxury are the ones the customer never notices — faster load times, smarter search, better size recommendations.
The panel also addressed the growing use of AI-generated imagery in fashion marketing. Anika argued that while AI can accelerate production, it cannot replace the intentionality of art direction. A human creative director makes choices that reflect the brand's values. An AI makes choices that reflect its training data.
The discussion reinforced a principle we hold at Onyx: technology serves craft. Not the reverse.