Some Future Day

Marc: [00:00:00] Will Gucci take off? Is Hermes dead in its tracks? Artificial intelligence is a superpower that will launch the luxury sector into the stratosphere, but only for brands wise enough to embrace the new technology now. Think
David: about craftsmanship. Think about storytelling, the myth, the stories that luxury brands.
tell about their products. All this is going to be a very precious skill in this AI augmented future. David
Marc: Klingbell is the founder and CEO of Submarine AI and a professor at New York University who specializes in the luxury sector. Who better to break down the opportunities and threats which exist perfectly at the intersection of AI and luxury.
Ben
David: David, nobody. It brings me a lot of enthusiasm. So that's why it feels like we're entering a new golden age.
Marc: On this [00:01:00] episode, Mr. Klingbell weighs in on how AI will transform the relationship between luxury houses and consumers vis a vis new hardware. AI augmented storytelling, fashion robots, and of course they got to pay cryptocurrency.
David, thank you so much for joining me on this important AI episode of Some Future Day. David Klingbell, it's such a pleasure to have you join me on Some Future Day. I'm really excited to see you today. How are you? All good. Thanks for having me, Mark. It's such a pleasure. We were just talking before the show started and it's rare that I get to meet an expert that is sitting directly at the intersection of luxury and technology.
I love that. I love that in you. Um, I know you do too. You appreciate the finer things in life. I see the Jeff Koons statue of the dog sitting above you. Um, as it relates to. Artificial [00:02:00] intelligence though david i've been struggling with this concept in my head go back let's go back in time think about the year twenty twenty one it was twenty twenty one not too long ago when open it a i officially launched dali to the public and.
In my mind, I wonder as it relates to the adoption enterprise adoption specifically of artificial intelligence. I often struggle with this idea of like, is nothing happening? Is there no user adoption at the corporate side? Are brands really not using artificial intelligence? So they came out, they exploded with Dolly too, and people tinkered with it.
But what are the companies doing? What are the brands doing? Is it just not sticking?
David: Yeah, it's true that generally speaking, when we think about disruptive technologies, such as AI, um, it seems like those technologies always follow the same kind of pattern. And it reminds me of a quote from Ernest Hemingway, you know, the [00:03:00] American author, uh, when he was asked how he got bankrupt, he said in two ways, first gradually, then suddenly.
And it seems like for AI, we're seeing the same kind of movement. Like AI is not something new. You know, if you think about during a second world war, uh, the allied, uh, the allies had, uh, you know, the, this machine, the two ring machine to crack the Enigma code. And this could be seen as the first steps, you know, of artificial intelligence and how it was used to decipher the codes of the Nazi and ended up helping the allies winning the war.
Uh, so artificial intelligence is not new. Uh, but yet some, there is a new. Acceleration. It's a, it's a new phase in the, in this technology that has started a few years ago. And if you think about it, we've been talking about AI for business users for many years. I don't know if you remember this video that emerged a few years ago.
of Will Smith. This was like a fully AI generated video from stable [00:04:00] diffusion. You know, you had Will Smith eating pasta in the same thing. He was eating his finger. The video was really weird. He had like 11 fingers. It was very strange. That was only two, three years ago. It was revolutionary. You could transform.
One prompt into a video and look at now, like just a few years after this weird video, look at Sora, look at what's meta AI is doing. Look at, look at runway ML and Pika. Now we can create super realistic videos that can be used that, uh, that can be used in ads that can be used, uh, in experiences that. All of the brands and all the luxury brands are now playing with.
So just like Ernest Hemingway said, it's, it was gradually for the longest time, and now since a few years, it's been suddenly, it looks like an overnight change that has been prepared for a very long time. So
Marc: David, you mentioned a lot of the better brands as it relates to text to video. Um, you know, their advancements and also are we over the time period of six fingers and three eyeballs and, you know, spaghetti [00:05:00] going crazy or, or are we still at that spot?
You know, that's funny.
David: I, uh, I used to, uh, like I used to say to my students recently that I am old enough to remember the time where you could spot an AI created image by counting the numbers of fingers. So. I think, you know, this very basic hallucination has been fixed, you know, like, uh, I think images and videos generated by AI are now way more realistic, way more convincing, you know, for better, for worse, you know, it means we can, uh, we can create great assets, great assets for brands, but you can also create deep fakes that can be also very misleading.
Uh, but yet. I think that this phenomenon of AI creating things that doesn't exist, you know, that we call hallucination, this phenomenon is still there, is still here, and I don't think there's any way to fully patch it to fully, you know, suppress hallucinations. And, you know, like a few weeks ago, my parents asked me to teach [00:06:00] them chat GPT.
They wanted to use chat GPT in their personal life. And I told them, you know, I teach them how to prompt. I taught them how to use a dolly and a chat GPT and so on and so forth. But I told them, you know, beware, don't take everything that AI says for truth. You know, sometimes it hallucinates sometime, you know, it's a, it invents some numbers, some dates and so on and so forth.
So I think even though the obvious hallucinations are over and the quality is much higher. There is still a lot of hallucinations going on and we should all be careful.
Marc: But David, let's stay focused on the text to video content creation tool. I think that's really valuable, particularly for the luxury sector.
If you were advising a luxury client to use one of those tools, because it has quality output, but it's also easy to use, which tool would you recommend?
David: Well, that's a good question. I think it depends of the use case. Um, you know, I think there are [00:07:00] some. Tools that are really good at doing things in general.
So let's say you want to create video, um, you know, runway ML is good. Pika is good. Uh, I think, you know, you have a tool called cling that also, that's also interesting. Uh, those are, you know, easy to use tools that can be leveraged immediately by your creative team. You know, you'll start prompting and in a, in a minute or so you will have some assets that you can use.
You can create storyboards, you can create videos and so on and so forth. I would say in the future, what's going to be more and more prominent, more and more interesting, is to stay very close to open source AI, and I think that You know, on the side of those very big models that are raising hundreds of millions of venture capital money and creating super advanced AI technology, such as the one I just mentioned, you also have some small and nimble models that are created by passionate people, open source community online.
Uh, and definitely I would, if I were a brand today, I would. You know, [00:08:00] look very closely at the open source movement. Most specifically, I would look at hugging face, you know, hugging face. Is this a platform that acts at, as a repository of all the open source models, all the open source data sets, uh, and all the conversations around the open source.
So I would, you know, uh, I would look at it very closely. I would experiment with some smaller model. I would play with it. You know, I would keep a very, I would keep an open mind, a creative mind and, and see what can we do with those smaller and nimbler models as well.
Marc: I agree with you. I'm a big advocate of open sourced AI.
I like the concept of decentralized artificial intelligence for several reasons, including the issue of hallucination. And I think innovation comes from the entrepreneurs. I think. It's worth noting at this point that you actually have your own artificial intelligence platform named submarine AI, which is super cool.
Do you want to quickly take a second and mention what it is that submarine provides for the [00:09:00] luxury sector? We're going to get back to it in detail, David, but since we're at this intersection, why don't you, why don't you talk about submarine for a minute?
David: Yeah, sure. So what submarine does, uh, it's a way for luxury brands to quickly identify.
Emerging trends within their industry. So basically what submarine does is, uh, we're watching millions of videos from all the luxury brands. So think about watches and jewelry fashion, but also beauty and cosmetics, automobile yachts, and so on and so forth, and, uh, the AI watch. All those videos and identify what are the trends, the topics, the celebrities, the events, the products that are mentioned in those videos.
And it creates trend reports that executives in the luxury industry can leverage to stay in touch with, uh, the emerging trends.
Marc: So that's pretty interesting, because I think a big problem that we've had historically with regards to trend analytics in the luxury sector is that [00:10:00] brands rely on data analytics, um, and they can't get to that data for a certain period of time.
I know brands like LVMH, for example, will have five or six data analysts. That are analyzing different data sets. And it takes about 15 to 30 days typically to, to analyze the data, compile the data, and then report back into that C suite of executives, CEO, CFO, CMO, are you suggesting that submarine can provide, let's say the CMO with data in real time and no longer does the CMO need to rely on a data analysts work?
David: Exactly. I think the key word here is the difference between data and insights. And there is this quote that I really love from the former CEO of Unilever. And he used to say, data makes your briefcase heavy, but insights make you rich. And I think, you know, data is plentiful. You can find data everywhere.
There's like millions of videos, millions of posts, millions [00:11:00] of interactions from your websites and clicks and impressions. So data is not a scarce resource at all. What is scarce is like making sense of this data, finding some actionable insights that you can derive from all of this data. And that's what Submarine does.
Submarine collects all the data, uses AI to analyze it and make sense out of this data. But then in the end, the end result is a report that a CMO or an executive at a luxury brand can read in a few seconds, in a few minutes to stay informed and updated about the latest trends.
Marc: Okay, so that's super cool, David.
I know everybody listening to the show wants to achieve what you're talking about. The end goal is to generate revenue, to make money, to create new forms of income. So could you give a hard example of what type of insight submarine might provide a CMO with so that in turn, that could, that could create new streams of revenue or quicker streams of revenue, please.
David: Yeah, definitely. I think for [00:12:00] me, what makes my job so interesting is that every day I discover some new sets of trends. Some of them can be big trends that are kind of obvious. Some other can be micro trends that are very disruptive and very surprising. And it's always so interesting, you know, to discover them.
One that I've discovered recently, I was looking at the fragrance category, which is, you know, a big driver of business for luxury brands. And I was. You know, asking myself, how is this category evolving? What is changing in this category? Because if you look at fragrance ads in general, uh, they are always very weird.
You know, like the, the typical fragrance ad is a beautiful woman running in a field of flower and then jumping in the air. And there's a beautiful guy that hugs him, hugs her. And it's written, you know, I don't know, Chanel number five. You know, it's like very weird, very surprising. So it's always interesting to see how our brands and creators and influencers talking about this category.
And what, and I've identified recently that there are a lot of new behaviors that are emerging [00:13:00] within the fragrance category. One that I found very interesting, uh, I called it fragrance maxing, and it's a whole set of behaviors from, uh, influencers and fragrance experts who are now finding new ways to maximize the impact of their fragrance.
So for instance. You have like some people have created videos and tutorial encouraging people to put their bottle of perfume in the freezer or in the fridge for a few hours before wearing them so that it will last longer. I've seen some other people who are hacking. The actual bottle of perfume, you know, therefore, you know, the spray to be more powerful and to have like more of it, uh, sprayed.
Uh, there's another one. You have like some really surprising and a little bit crazy influencers who do what I called greedy spring. So they will spray 30 or 50 times their fragrance on them to, you know, maximize the impact or the smell of the, of the fragrance. So all these are kind of anecdotes, but I think it's very interesting because [00:14:00] it shows how.
People are, you know, using fragrances in a different way, in a more creative way, in a playful way, sometime in a very extreme way, which can be inspiring if you're a fragrance brand and you want to think, you know, how you can set your next campaign apart from the ones of your competitors. So that's something fun that I saw recently on Submarine.
Marc: Yeah, David, that's really interesting. So I take as a chief marketing officer, as a brand manager, I take that insight, fragrance, maximalization, and I can impact my product design. I can make a stronger scent, right? With the, the noses at Simrise and IFF and Givaudan, I can, um, on my own now create a new type of delivery system.
My primary pack, my primary packaging can have more oomph when the fragrance, when the mist comes out. And of course the fun part, my content creation. My ad campaign can also underscore that point. And, you know, that's super valuable. I could see where a CMO would make the link all the way to executing [00:15:00] on those plans and creating new streams of revenue.
So, and
David: just like, as you said, you know, it's, I think it's both on the short term and in the long term. Because long term it can impact your product development, but also short term, you know, for instance, like submarine tracks, all the ingredients that are used in skincare and beauty products. And so let's say there were like, for instance, there is a trend that emerged recently about fermented ingredients, things like kefir kombucha and so on and so forth.
That's used to be, uh, ingredients that were in food, but that are now making their way into beauty as well. So let's say you're a CMO brand. And you realize that within your portfolio of products, you have some products that have some of those trendy ingredients like turmeric, like Jojoba oil, like Edelweiss flour, and so on and so forth.
But you didn't highlight them that much in your campaigns. So over the short term, you could decide to launch maybe an organic campaign on social media or a partnership with an influencer to promote something that's already in your product. So you can even leverage those trends over [00:16:00] the short term. And of course, also in the, over the longer term for product development.
It's interesting
Marc: that you landed. On the culinary or food space, Bath and Body Works is one of my clients, and you might be aware they are one of the biggest, excuse me, they are the single biggest fragrance company in the world, and their candles that kind of align with culinary, the candles that are food, even they did the Stranger Things pizza candle, um, have been performing exceedingly well, so it's interesting that you're providing that insight, David, but I was going to mention earlier that Is that it's worth noting to the audience, your background, you didn't just come up with this idea and say, Oh, I love luxury.
And I have this cool affinity for AI. Your background is with Google. You spent years and years and years of analyzing data and looking at technology. So this is a, um, this is the submarine is effectively the upshot of years and years and years of your personal growth and knowledge and development.
Correct. Yeah,
David: exactly. You know, [00:17:00] I worked for Google for six years and I had the weirdest job you've ever heard of. Uh, because as a global insight lead, my job was to look at what people were searching for on Google, what they were watching on YouTube and how they were behaving on like all the different via all the other, the differences, audience signals in order to identify, you know, those nuggets of gold.
That's what we call insights. And then my job was to share those insights with luxury and beauty brands, uh, in order to help them in their digital strategy, their advertising strategy, and so on and so forth. So for six years, you know, I've worked with all of the luxury and beauty brands you can think of, you know, going from LVMH to Chanel and Hermes, uh, L'Oreal, Estee Lauder, Cody, and so on and so forth.
Uh, and you know, I was. Working with them, helping them identify those, you know, weak signals that we could see in, in data in order to inform, uh, their, you know, consumer and market insights, uh, teams and their marketing [00:18:00] teams, digital teams, and in order to help them understand consumers better. So that was what I, what I've been doing for a while.
Marc: It's really, really interesting. Thank you for sharing that. And I know that you've been tinkering a little bit personally with your own LinkedIn. Profile and just over the past few days, maybe a week or so, you were able to surpass the 100, 000 view mark, um, because you've been looking at insight and driving that forward.
Do you want to talk to that real quick?
David: Yeah, I think, you know, in, uh. I think in, in today's day and age, people are hungry for insights. They're hungry for interesting information that will help them understand the consumer better, help them prepare the next campaign, help them invent the next product. Um, and I think, you know, you know, this, uh, as, as well as I do, you're, you're also a professor at an, at NYU, just like me, and you can see the impact of sharing an information the right way.
With the classroom and you can see how we can impact, you know, the career, the [00:19:00] life of, uh, of the students. And so I was just, you know, coming back from six weeks of intense teaching at NYU. I was teaching like eight hours a day, five days a week for six weeks. Wow. That was kind of intense as you, as you might imagine.
Very intense. And I felt, you know, I, it felt so good. It felt, it feels so good to share information, to interact with students, to answer the questions and so on and so forth that when I was back, you know, home and I would like my semester was over. I thought, how can I continue, you know, creating some interesting insights and sharing it with people.
And I thought, how can I do it at a reach that's. Even higher than just sharing it to a classroom of 60 to 80 students. And so LinkedIn, you know, appear to be like the right platform to share the information. Cause I'm, you know, I'm sharing information about insights, about luxury and about the luxury business.
So I felt, you know, Twitter or X was not the perfect platform for that. So I just started, you know, posting every day. One interesting. Thoughts or insights [00:20:00] about luxury, and it seemed that immediately people started commenting, reacting, reposting on, you know, it has started so many, you know, interesting conversations and, you know, great relationship with people that I think I'm going to continue doing this.
Who knows, maybe if we do a second episode of podcast together, maybe in a year, maybe I'll reach like the million impressions. Let's see.
Marc: I hope so.
David: I hope
Marc: so. So David, focusing back on the trajectory of artificial intelligence, as I said, it's feeling like we're in this rut. I, I think you're more optimistic than most as am I.
Where would you say we are as it relates to the growth of artificial intelligence? Are we entering a certain type of golden age? Will we see the trajectory skyrocket now and brands will actually be able to use these tools and implement them? You mentioned earlier that the quality of the content coming out from tools Like runway R is superior now better perhaps than where it was [00:21:00] two years ago or so.
So where would you say we are as far as the growth goes? Would you, would you consider us entering an age of, you know, a new era, an age of AI?
David: Definitely. I think, you know, like when I look at what I'm able to do with AI, uh, with Submarine. ai. I'm the amount of data we can now analyze the, how deep we can go into the analysis using just, you know, a few, uh, open source AI or API APIs from the, from the big AI providers.
I think it's incredible. And the, the, the quality and the amount of things that someone who's into AI. And who's familiar on how to use it in the optimal way. The amount of things that someone could do today, uh, is incredible. Like it feels like what you can do today with one person and a few, uh, LLMs used to require 15 people and six months, uh, five years ago.
So for me, when I, when I see all of this, [00:22:00] it's, you know, I understand it can be a little overwhelming. It can be even a little scary. And it's true that, you know, last year or two years ago, when Chad, GPT started to show the first signs of being so promising and so, so smart. A lot of people were afraid, you know, they thought, will AI take, take my job away?
Will I replace me? What will be my role in society with, uh, uh, you know, world full of, of AI. Plus, you know, AI is just getting smarter and smarter every year and cheaper and cheaper every year. Uh, you know, like the, the AI we, we have now, uh, it, it will never be as bad as it is right now to only get better from here, you know?
So I understand, you know, there can be some, some doubts, some fear. Uh, around all this, but for me, I look at it with a much more optimistic and positive outlook because I see what AI is allowing me to do. I'm also seeing how my students are leveraging AI. So if you think about the next generation of leaders, uh, you know, like, [00:23:00] uh, as I said, My semester of teaching just ended a few days ago.
And I remember at the beginning of the semester, I asked my students, Okay, which AI tools are you using? So, of course, they all know ChatGPT. But that was pretty much it. You know, they were not using AI that much. And they were kind of afraid. They were skeptical and afraid about AI. By the end of the semester, after, you know, doing a bit of evangelization and convincing to them, after encouraging them to use Mid journey, RunwayML, Perplexity, and other AI tools for their homework and their projects.
By the end of the semester, the quality of the things that my students were able to create using AI was incredible. Like the last assignment I gave them was to create To imagine a collaboration between two luxury brands and to create an ad for this, for this collab and keep in mind, those students are not designers.
They're not like artists. They are business [00:24:00] school students. And yet the ads that I've created were so professional. You could have posted them on Tik Tok or Instagram the next day so much that for their final jury, I had a senior vice president of Estee Lauder, the Estee Lauder group that was in the, in the jury.
And he said, can I get the contact of three of the groups to introduce them to the brands? Because what those students were able to create with AI was like. Of a quality that's similar to what we would expect from a professional. So for all of those reasons, you know, I feel very optimistic. I think people should not be afraid of AI, but they should be afraid of like they will not be replaced by AI.
They will be replaced by people using AI if they don't adapt. But if they adapt, people will be enhanced, enhanced by AI. It will, you know, like, let me give you another example. Let's say you mark, maybe you have like some creative ideas, maybe you have a lot of creativity within yourself and I'm sure you are, you have, you, you're, you're a professor, you're [00:25:00] a podcast host, so I'm sure you have a lot of creative ideas prior to AI.
It was hard to express them like if you don't know how to draw, if you don't know how to paint, if you don't know how to use Photoshop or create a video, it's hard to express this part of your personality now with AI. I see we're entering. In an era where people like you, people like me who have idea, but not necessarily the technical creative skills suddenly can express themselves and create something that they can use for work or in their personal life or as a gift to their friends and family, which is, you know, very, um, it, it brings me a lot of enthusiasm.
So that's why I, it feels like we're entering a new golden age.
Marc: I love that story that you shared with your students. I think it's worth noting. I had a similar experience with my students at NYU. No one is experienced there as it relates to design or creativity, solely individuals with a business background.
They were able to create over the course of the [00:26:00] semester and no experience. It was like tabula rosa, no experience in AI at all. Over the course of the semester, they were able to implement a comprehensive program, which came to life a comprehensive program regarding the launch of new products, and they came to life in the form of logos, primary packaging, secondary packaging.
Um, in store environments, print campaigns and video campaigns. It was fantastic. They also used artificial intelligence on the data side, David, which I think you'll appreciate they helped. They used AI to create data sets and then develop a marketing strategy that included several different. Um, several different elements, including paid social paid search and beyond programmatic advertising, these types of elements.
So I'm like you, I'm a very optimistic individual when it comes to artificial intelligence. I believe we should accelerate, go faster, go deeper into [00:27:00] it. However, as you know, a lot of our colleagues in the luxury sector. Are reluctant, they're afraid, and they don't know what to do. So what I'd like to do is break down with you the 2020, 2025 AI trends and risks, specifically as it relates to the luxury sector.
I asked you to help put together 12 areas of concentration. The first one that we wanted to focus in as it relates to luxury brands is the issue of counterfeiting. As you're very well aware, teaching in New York. Canal street is like a counterfeiter's dream. People come from all over the world to pick up their fake Gucci, their fake Vuitton, their fake Rolex, it's bananas.
So in your mind, how can AI help luxury brands fight counterfeiting?
David: Yeah, definitely. That's, you know, one of the first business use cases of, uh, you know, of AI for luxury brands will be to identify fake products. [00:28:00] Uh, in an accurate and scalable way, because as of today, the only way we have to know if a product is a genuine or fake luxury good is to rely on sales people with, uh, in the stores, you know, if you bring.
Um, you know, like a, a watch to a Rolex store, uh, and ask for a repair, and then the Rolex person realize, oh, that's not a real Rolex, that's a fake. Um, you know, that's today the only way we have to, to tell if a luxury good is, is genuine or not. Yet, there are like some startups that are emerging and leveraging technologies such as image recognition, pattern recognition, uh, you know, um, computer vision and so on and so forth.
Some startup are now leveraging ai. To identify a genuine versus counterfeit luxury goods. One example that comes to mind is a startup called Anthropy that has been You know, in business for a few years now, but it seems like their technology is getting more and more accurate, more and more precise, [00:29:00] and they're they're able via the app to tell you just with a few pictures of a luxury handbag to tell you if this luxury handbag is it.
a genuine or a counterfeit one. So they will ask you to take a picture of the label, to take a picture of the corners, take a picture of the, um, you know, like the metal parts, the leather parts, like a few specific details. And they have a database of millions of images of tens of thousands of different handbags.
And they're able to identify some specific detail that will separate and distinguish the counterfeit from the genuine. And I think. This is even more important as we all know that secondhand luxury or pre owned luxury is a huge business opportunity that is growing a lot and that will continue to grow in 2025.
And one of the big issue and challenges of secondhand luxury is that, you know, if you mark a, you want to buy. Uh, pre owned Hermes handbag, uh, for your [00:30:00] loved one. Your biggest fear is that if you don't buy it at Hermes, you know, if you're going to, if you buy it on a secondhand luxury platform, your biggest fear is going to be what, what if I buy a fake one?
And what if I'm paying too much for something that's not actually a Hermes handbag? And I think that the, in 2025, we'll see more and more of those secondhand luxury platforms leverage technology. Alongside what they're doing currently, which is like hiring experts that will identify, uh, the genuine versus the counterfeit luxury goods, but we'll see more and more technology being involved in this process.
One other area where I think, you know, AI powered, um, counterfeits recognition will, uh, will make a big impact is also, you know, on. Everything that's like life commerce or social commerce. I think that 2025 will definitely be the year where TikTok shop and maybe other social shops and life commerce will emerge in the West.
[00:31:00] You know, this is a trend that's already very big in Asia, but it's becoming bigger and bigger now in the West. Uh, and I know that for instance, TikTok has a partnership with entropy in order to identify luxury handbags and luxury goods. Uh, on their second hand, you know, pre owned luxury platform. So it's say that's like the first and most obvious use case of AI that we're going to see emerging in luxury.
Marc: That's interesting. I was going to ask you if in the S commerce sector, this type of artificial intelligence will be integrated into the user experience. So are you saying that Anthropy and, and TikTok actually have a deal where as one is shopping on TikTok shop, they can figure out whether or not a Birkin bag is real.
Is it integrated into the user
David: experience? So it's, it's, it's integrated in the backend. So any, um, any luxury good pre owned luxury goods you would buy from the TikTok, uh, pre owned, uh, like officially approved pre owned platform on TikTok shop would be checked [00:32:00] by entropy, uh, which would give you like, um, a sort of guarantee that it's a real one.
Uh, so for now it's more happening in the backend. It's not something that the user will do live on, on the app.
Marc: I see. That's very interesting. That's going to accelerate. I'm sure at some point it will be integrated into the user experience to another section that I'm really interested in as it relates to AI trends in 2025 is hardware.
David, I think until we get hardware perfect, it's going to keep us at a slower pace than you and I would hope for. What do you think is on the horizon as it relates to hardware that delivers a utility? Yeah, absolutely. Experience for AI that, um, delivers a, an easier, lighter, uh, more seamless experience for consumers with AI.
David: Right. Yeah. I think, you know, when it comes to connected objects or wearable, uh, technology, I think that a lot is happening right now. And I feel like way more is about to happen over the next few months [00:33:00] or years. Uh, you know, we used to say that wearable devices were. Wearable, but actually nobody was actually wearing them because they were ugly and awful.
So if you think, like, if you remember, for instance, of about, like, think about the Google glass, remember those device that look like you were in a star Trek movie. I mean, for me, I used to love them. I used to find them very futuristic, very interesting, but let's, you know, let's, let's be honest. Most people don't want to wear a weird, a cyborg looking device on their, on their eyes.
So that was like the past, you know, those wearable device, nobody wanted to wear them. I think, you know, what's changing now is that tech companies are partnering with luxury companies in order to create hardware and wearable devices that people will want to wear. And the big example that comes to my mind on this topic is what Neda has done with Ray Ban.
So Ray Ban is probably one of the most famous high end slash luxury, uh, sunglass manufacturer. [00:34:00] And when meta decided to launch their own AI powered sunglasses, they, they've decided not to create the design themselves, but to partner with a brand that knew how to ignite desire, uh, in their consumer's mind.
And therefore I think that this partnership between meta and, uh, uh, Rayban could be, you know, one of the first example of an AI powered luxury product, uh, which, you know, I would suspect maybe. More and more of those could emerge in the future. Uh, it's of course not the first one. It's not the only one like we all have in mind as well.
This whole trend of connected watches, smartwatches and many luxury brands have participated in this trend. Maybe you remember the Louis Vuitton Tambour Horizon, which was a connected watch from Louis Vuitton. In part, it was a partnership as well between LV and Google, Google Android. So. It's not necessarily like a brand new thing that tech and luxury are partnering.
There's also, you know, the Hermes and Apple [00:35:00] watch a partnership that was, you know, very acclaimed by, by a lot of people back in the days, but it seems like with AI, we're entering a whole new era. So I would not be surprised if we see more of those AI powered luxury goods emerging soon.
Marc: Yeah, I hope so. We just haven't seen a true breakthrough yet where it's easy and exciting.
And to your point, chic for the consumer, it's just, it's just not quite there yet, which is disappointing. Perhaps we'll see something that's not exactly hardware, but some growth as it relates to contact lenses, providing data and information for the consumer soon.
David: Yeah, that would be, that would be the dream, you know, like what's beautiful with technology is.
When technology disappears, when it just feels like magic, you know, uh, so I feel we're not there yet, but, you know, maybe we're a few iterations from a technology that will actually feel like magic, you know, with miniaturization with like the increase of computing power with the increase [00:36:00] of. Cell phone networks and so on and so forth.
Maybe we're just a few iterations from something truly, truly magical.
Marc: David, I think the third AI trend is controversial. The concept of AI augmented storytelling. The reason I think it's controversial is because. Perhaps people, consumers, don't want to be told what to buy anymore. Perhaps we're entering an age where we see consumers becoming part of the story, shaping the story itself.
Do you think artificial intelligence will totally reshape the art of storytelling between 2025?
David: So I don't think, I don't think it will totally reshape it, uh, yet, maybe in the future, but, uh, but it will definitely enhance it. And I think, you know, like you're very right when you say consumers don't want to be told what to buy.
And I think that the way luxury brands [00:37:00] sell things is not about telling you to buy. And there is this, uh, thing that I usually say to, to my students, which is that luxury is not just about selling. Luxury is about igniting the desire to buy, and it sounds like, you know, marketing BS and just like another way of looking of saying the same thing, but it's not.
I think, you know, those luxury brands, they are masters at igniting desire, which by the way, you know, in an era where everything that a human can do can be done better by AI, you know, which we're not there yet, but it will probably soon be the case. There's one thing that AI is not that good at is igniting desire.
You know, like, let's take one example. I know Mark, you're, you're a big fan of music. I know you're a big fan of the Beatles. You've named your, your son after some songs of the Beatle. I know you've interviewed some rock stars. How much AI generated music do you listen to on a daily basis? [00:38:00] Zero. Zero. Right.
Because it's correct. You know, AI generated music is good for elevators, maybe like, you know, ambience music in elevators. Maybe if you call a call center and you have a little bit of AI generated music, why not? But in fact, nobody desires it. You don't have this connection that you can have with human created music.
And I think, you know, that's going to be one of the assets for luxury brands is that they know something that AI is very bad at igniting desire. So think about. Craftsmanship, think about storytelling, the myth, the stories that luxury brands tell about their products. All this is going to be a very precious skill in this AI augmented future.
So that's what, that's what I think for illustrating.
Marc: Yeah, I agree with you. I think that as it relates to music in particular, and I talk about this in my new book, a songwriter, someone like Bob Dylan during the 60s, he really had his finger on the pulse [00:39:00] of humanity, on what the people at the street level really wanted, these songs of revolution, this Social justice movement in the sixties, it was really important and he connected with all of those people.
I don't know if algebra. Right. If generative AI, if math can have that same emotional connection for all of the arts, right. For music, for, uh, fine, fine art painting and beyond. I think there might be missing that element. I get into that in my new book, and it's an interesting thing to, to examine.
David: Yeah. And you know, when you study luxury, the deeper you go into.
Theories and concept of luxury, the more you realize that there is something in common between luxury and art and between luxury art and religion, and that's something that's deeply human, which is a connection with something that is bigger than just, you know, the atoms that are that are making this world, you know, just like, [00:40:00] you know, religion is about Answering what happens after life, you know, what, what is this notion of eternity and what happens after just like art, art is connecting with something, you know, that is bigger than a human being that is, that transcends mankind.
And that's also, there is this notion of eternal and forever. Similarly, you know, in luxury, you have this notion of timelessness luxury supposed to be timeless. So all those notions of religion, art and luxury. Are connected with this notion of this relation to time, timelessness, life and death and so on and so forth, which is very human.
And, you know, I never want to say AI will never be able to do it because AI is very surprising. You know, I see it on submarine. AI can identify trends that are extremely surprising that maybe no human could have identified or analyzed that way. But as of today, you know, like, so, so I'm always uncomfortable saying AI will never do it, do it.
But as of [00:41:00] today, it seems like AI is not good yet at doing those things that are deeply human, which are, you know, this link with desire, this desire for human connection and so on and so forth. Going back, you know, to the example of music, you know, when music got digitized. People stopped buying CDs. You know, when I was a kid, it was, you know, as a birthday gift, everybody was giving, you know, like a, uh, an album, which was an object.
It was a plastic box with a cover and a little CD inside. Now nobody would do that. I don't even have anything to play a CD at my place. I only have digital music. So now we stream music. So there is no object of music. It's just an access to, uh, to the information. However, Today, more than never, people are going to concerts.
People are going to festivals. They want to connect with other people. Look at the success of a Taylor Swift tour, how many billions were generated by those kinds of events. Look at all those people going to burning man, going to ultra, uh, you know, electronic music festival. [00:42:00] It's not like that music disappeared the day Spotify emerge, just that it has shifted to something else.
So likewise, I think that When everybody will be able to create amazing visuals and products using AI. Then maybe we will shift what we value towards something else. And I suspect that this something else will be closer to the kind of experiences that luxury brands provide.
Marc: So it's an interesting thing.
If you really consider what we're talking about, we're not talking about storytelling. We're talking about story making, and then you mentioned Taylor Swift. And that kind of leads me to our fifth trend in artificial intelligence. for 2025. The idea of virtual influencers, maybe that's the tell the storyteller specifically.
So you have the beautiful song that's created and then delivered by an artist. Will virtual influencers, metahumans be a thing in 2025?
David: So I think that's for sure what's going to [00:43:00] happen. What is already happening right now is that. Virtual avatars are becoming more and more realistic, more and more convincing.
So it say that technically the technology is ready for more brands and more people to use. Virtual avatars, virtual influencers in their experiences and in their campaign. And once again, this is not something that is entirely new. Uh, there were some virtual influencers that have been working with luxury brands for a while.
Uh, one of the most famous one is a virtual influencer called Lili Miquela. So Lili Miquela is an Instagram account. Uh, offer 3d generated, the person, uh, lover tells, um, um, their life online explaining, uh, like their daily lives, their relationships and so on and so forth. And little Michaela, for instance, has partnered with many luxury brands who've hired little Michaela for a campaign for a post.
Uh, they posted online. Uh, you also have, you know, some, some luxury brands have created their [00:44:00] very own, uh, Virtual influencers. So for instance, I have in mind one example from Balmain, you know, Balmain has a community of fans that they call the Balmain army. So if you're a fan of the, of the Maison, you are part of the Balmain army.
And for one of their fashion shows, they've actually featured some virtual members of the Balmain army, which are virtual avatars of people who are, uh, you know, virtual fans of, uh, Balmain. So all this, you know, has existed and has been used by luxury brands over the last few years, but it feels like now the technology.
is becoming so realistic, so scalable as well. So now it's, it's very easy to create a virtual avatar. It's very easy to create a virtual celebrity, which are influencer. So think about what companies like 11 lab or Hey, Jen are doing where you can create an avatar of yourself and create videos. You know, you just like, like film a few footages of your face and you reading a text, and then you just input another text that you've never said.
And you will see your avatar saying that, uh, that other [00:45:00] text. So it seems like the technology is ready now. My question would be, I don't know if the people are ready. So do we, will it feel a little bit weird? Will it feel a little bit cringe to have virtual influencers? Let's see. Let's see if people are convinced by them.
And therefore, you know, my question would be, will tomorrow's virtual influencer, will they be very realistic? Like, will they look as if they were real people or the opposite? Will they be very, uh, like, They come out of the imagination. Will it be like there is one virtual influencer? I can't remember its name, but it's actually a sausage.
So it's a sausage with hair. So it's the opposite of being realistic. And this, for instance, this, uh, influencer was used for a Hugo Boss campaign. So I wonder if the future is Creating ultra realistic virtual influencers or the opposite ultra fantastic legendary virtual influencers who whose hair are actually fire and whose skins are rainbow or whatever, you know, like something someone who has like five arms and wings.
[00:46:00] So I don't know in which direction. Luxury brands, fashion brands are going to go, but definitely the tech is ready for them to leverage it.
Marc: I think there's a real utility as it relates to allowing for a luxury brand to create a personalized experience for its shopper, for its consumer with a virtual influencer, for example, how many times do we either online or in brick and mortar enter a.
Luxury world, and it's a poor experience. I'll walk into, you know, any luxury brand on 5th Avenue, and I want somebody to help me with a new leather jacket. The person that approaches me, I don't like, I don't like them. I can't relate. I don't understand what they're talking about. They're too pushy. They're of a different generation.
I can't understand their accent, whatever it might be. So perhaps virtual influencers. Meta humans can create a customized and personalized [00:47:00] experience specifically for the consumer to enhance that experience so that the individual selling, trying things on, et cetera, are more relatable. That's a good segue into the sixth concept, the sixth trend area, David.
Just before segueing
David: into this concept, just to react to what you say. So what you're describing is the core of the luxury experience, the retail experience. This is. An immensely important element of the path to purchase and the luxury experience and in theory. Luxury retail is like a temple is like a theater.
The store, the flagship is supposed to be the pinnacle of the luxury experience. It's supposed to embody the vision, the vision of the world of the creative director and his or her team. And it's supposed to be a perfect experience. But in reality, as you just said, the kind of experience that are delivered.
In some stores [00:48:00] are set bar are, um, frustrating are, you know, disappointing. And. If you are a happy few, you're going to have the best experience. You know, you're going to have your private store. You know, Chanel has their own VIP private store. Uh, you know, if you take a brand like show me, you know, the, the jewelry brand that creates diadems and tiaras for the royalties of the, of the world.
They have, you know, a private room on Place Vendome, the most beautiful place in Paris. They have the Chopin Salon, which is like a room where Chopin, the music composer, wrote his last piece. So there is still the piano on which Chopin has created his last piano song. And so you, if you are one of the happy few, you will have the best experience you can imagine.
You will have champagne, you will have a dedicated salesperson that knows everything he or she has to know about yourself. A lot of personalized attention and so on and so forth. But the reality is that in parallel to the happy few, you have the unhappy [00:49:00] many and the unhappy many. There are waiting in line in front of the Hermès store.
They are waiting in line in front of the Louis Vuitton store. They arrive and the bag they wanted to buy. They are being told it's not available. It's not in the right color. It's not here. Uh, they are impressed, you know, by the luxury store. So they, they are a little bit intimidated and they don't dare to enter.
So why not, you know, as you were suggesting, why not including some AI elements and some virtual avatar elements in order to bring the level of service of the happy few to the unhappy many, that would be an idea. You know, if you ask me personally. I would think this would be a bit sad. You know, I think I would rather, uh, we would have the opportunity to bring a human experience and a good experience to more people.
So it's a little bit sad that we have to, um, that we cannot offer this happy few experience experience to more people, but you know, that's, that's a possibility. That's definitely a possibility.
Marc: Well, we could definitely start in the digital realm, right? So my [00:50:00] Hermes experience could be heightened if the metahuman sharing insight with regards to new product launches and fit and beyond is in the is created in the form that I like.
I think that this concept of virtual influencers or metahumans specifically as it relates to a digital experience is also going to shift the way we analyze Customer segments, uh, demographic profiles, and maybe even psychographic profiles too. We're still very, uh, behind as it relates to the way that demographic profiles are broken down.
We break it down by age and, and, you know, geographical location by average household income yet. You know, that seems to be like blending a lot more. I think we could take smaller slivers. I could talk in terms of this person might be, um, a middle aged white guy who really loves sports and is socially open to everything in the world.
And, and I would speak differently to this [00:51:00] individual versus perhaps. My mom, right? So it could be a real advantage, I think, and actually enhance the luxury experience if they started with metahumans to personalize, uh, that level. So getting into customer service, I mean, that's another area where it's complicated.
I think that most people complain about customer service. It's always a bad experience. And I wonder if luxury brands in the customer service sector can benefit through the use of artificial intelligence in 2025.
David: Yeah, definitely. I think we're, we're very early on this domain and most customer service as of today is still being offered by, you know, regular old school humans.
But it seems like once again, the technology is ready now to either enhance, uh, the people, the human who are delivering, uh, uh, customer services in order to know more about the audience, sorry, to know more about their clientele or to deliver a better quality of service. So that's one possibility, or [00:52:00] another possibility would be to invent some, you know, digital chat, some like another possibility would be to invent some chatbots that would deliver customer service in an elevated way, a more sophisticated way using AI.
And one example of this, uh, you know, the luxury group Kering, the group that has Gucci, Saint Laurent, and many other luxury brands, they created a division called KNext. So it's spelled K N E X T. X. T. And which is their sort of incubator of technologies where they experiment with many technologies. So they've created a lot of Web three and metaverse experiences, and now they seem to be focusing way more on A.
I. And via this K next division. Kering has invented a sort of personal shopper that they called Madeleine, which will give personalized recommendation to clients. So for now, it's only giving recommendations for Kering products. So it would have to be, uh, for, from one of the brands owned by Kering. Uh, [00:53:00] but you would go to Madeleine, uh, tell, uh, tell her a bit more about yourself, what occasions, what were you looking for, what's your style and so on and so forth.
And Madeleine would identify What are the shoes, the outfit, the accessory, the bag that would be the best for you, given the information, uh, you, you've given her, um, which by the way, you know, like it's a little bit of a, uh, I'm being sidetracked a little bit, but I'm thinking about something. I don't know if you've realized that, uh, Mark, but you know, it's interesting, the words that we're using when we're talking about AI versus the words that we're using when we're talking about other technologies.
So for instance, when you are searching for something on Google. You're using a verb. You're saying, I'm gonna, I'm Googling it. Okay. I'm gonna Google AI for luxury. I'm gonna Google, where's the store for from Louis Vuitton. This is a verb. Whereas for ai, AI is not a verb. We don't say, I'm gonna charge g pt, we're gonna say, I'm, I'm gonna ask charge GPT.
So it's very to see that [00:54:00] already, you know, in the vocabulary, AI has become a person, whereas search was a verb. Was an action. AI is a person. And it's interesting because the way luxury brands are leveraging AI is also by creating a person, an avatar, a bot. And so it's funny because I think the words that we're using are revealing a lot of things that we have in mind and what's in our subconscious.
So that's like a little fun fact to keep in mind. Well,
Marc: David, I think that's a real fun fact. And I, I, um, naturally go to the concept of AGI and how nice would it be if the first meaningful AGI is in the luxury sector with our seventh concept. Robots. I know that you had a unique experience personally, a robotic experience at something called escape.
Do you want
David: to talk about that a little bit? Yeah, exactly. So I met the team at escape a few weeks ago. Uh, they came for a guest lecture in my NYU class and they gave a demonstration of their technology. [00:55:00] Uh, and in the end, they, uh, they gave me a voucher to try their first robotic spa. Uh, so they have a partnership with all the Equinox gyms in New York, as well as a few other places in the country.
And so I went, and so what escape does is that they've created, they've put together some very sophisticated robots and camera and advanced technologies, and they've created a robot that can give you a massage. As good as what a massage therapist would give you. So you had that massage, David? So I've had that massage.
So I went in New York city. I actually, I actually went to their location in Miami and, uh, and so you go there, you put, uh, you put on a specific outfits, uh, which is like a very tight outfits that the cameras of the robots can recognize all the areas of your body. You lay down on it, on a table. So you put your head, you know, within a hole where you have a screen in front of your eyes, and then you can customize all the elements of the massage.
You can say, I want it harder, softer. I want it to focus on the [00:56:00] shoulders or more like on the lower back and so on and so forth. You press a few buttons and then you lay down and you have those robotic arms that are vibrating, that are heated, that are pressing just the right points on your back. Like, you know, looking at your reactions and so on and so forth.
And I must say that this was mind blowing. You know, this is just, it's just the very beginning. You know, this is the first robotic spa, the first version of this robot imagines by escape, but I think imagine what, what it could look like in two, three years, five years, 10 years, the kind of the level of service that we will be able to deliver via robots.
It was very inspiring. I
Marc: think we're going to see it happen quicker because it appears that with the advent of manufacturing technology in robotics, we are on the way to less expensive, personalized robotics. I wouldn't be surprised if Elon Musk and his entire platform are [00:57:00] offering individual robotics in house for less than 10, 000.
imminently. I believe that that's going to happen.
David: Yeah, definitely. You know, it's, I don't want to speculate too much on the, on the future because you know, I'm guilty of something. I was guilty of something. And I think you were guilty of that crime as well. When web three and the metaverse started to emerge, we all believed that it will revolutionize everything overnight.
And I still believe that crypto blockchain that web three will revolutionize things at the end of the, uh, at some point, but. It's taking way more time that we, than we thought. So that's why since, you know, um, I think three years ago I had this, I created this class at NYU called the new codes of luxury in web three and the metaverse, and I was telling the students, it's, it's about to happen.
It's about to happen. NFTs are going to be the new luxury goods. Web three, the blockchain is going to be used to fight counterfeits. Digital products, passports are going to emerge. And I still believe they will, [00:58:00] but. You know, it's taking a bit more time to reach a mass scale. So I would say for AI, you want me to be patient with my AGI, Elon Musk, masseuse.
I mean, we need people like us who are, who are impatient, who are optimistic, who think, you know, everything's going to happen overnight. We, we need dreamers. So we are dreamers. We are dreaming about this future happening right now, but, you know, let's not be too disappointed if it takes a few years to actually happen.
Marc: Well, it's a good segue into our eighth trend, which is the merging between artificial intelligence and crypto blockchain web three, we're going to see a lot of that. I think the new administration is really going to unleash American ingenuity investment. A lot of growth. I anticipate will happen within the next few months.
The United States in the next four years, at least, but let's face it, you covered this a little bit before there's an issue with regards to trust. You mentioned it a little earlier. How do you see artificial intelligence and web three coming together as it [00:59:00] relates to the trust factor?
David: Yeah. So this is the key to what's going to happen over the next few years is the cocktail, the mix.
Of AI and crypto, because AI in some way can disrupt our notion of time. So things that used to take a lot of time can be done much faster thanks to AI, while crypto disrupts the notion of trust. So things that required a third party, someone to trust, to validate or prove something can be disrupted and can be done directly using crypto.
And I think that if you put together those two technologies, AI for time crypto for trust. And even I would add a third layer. And if you add immersive technologies like AR, VR, that's disrupt. Uh, places, you know, it disrupts, you can go to places without moving. So I think that if you put together those three technologies, you get a cocktail that's a pretty unique, but going back to your [01:00:00] question of AI and crypto, it's true that.
AI is a tool that will allow the best and the worst to emerge. So the best, you know, we'll have like, probably I think over the next few months or the next few years, we will see the first billion dollar business that has only one employee emerge. I think that that's the power of AI. It could replace a whole team.
To the point that individuals or small group of individual will be able to create unprecedented value and wealth. So that's the good thing. I'm sure AI will also be used to save lives. I'm sure AI will use to solve complex problem and so on and so forth. But there was also the dark side. Where, you know, AI is just a tool.
It doesn't care if you're using it for good or for bad. Just like a knife. You know, a knife can cut your meat and, uh, you know, save you from starving, or you can stab someone and kill, uh, and kill an individual. Same for the fire and so on and so forth. AI can also allow the worst, you know, like we will have like some scams that are [01:01:00] powered by AI, some deep fakes that are so realistic that people will get fooled.
You know, I'm, I'm imagining, you know, in a few, probably we'll have some cases in a few months of, you know, like maybe. Someone's grandmother that gets scammed by a sophisticated deep fake of her grandkids asking her for money and just being scammed. So, you know, some terrible thing might happen with, uh, with AI, but I think this, the solution to those, uh, you know, claims of misinformation or deep fakes and so on and so forth is to add a layer of crypto because if I add a cryptographic signature to any crypto, All the assets that I produce.
So let's say if I say each time that I'm gonna create a video, I put it on the blockchain using technologies that are already available as of today. You know, cryptographic signatures, NFTs, uh, you know, blockchain explorers, and so on and so forth. So each time I put a piece of content, I would put it on the, I put, I would put a a, a mark or a trace on the blockchain that would.
Allow you [01:02:00] to identify the provenance of this piece of content. And at first, you know, maybe you will have to manually check, you know, like you're seeing a video of me. That looks a little weird. You're going to check on my blockchain. Is it a real David King bells content or is it a fake, but maybe at some point, this technology will be, you know, embedded directly in your browser or in your phone.
So you, you wouldn't have to do anything like your phone would immediately check. All the videos you're watching, all the content you're reading, and it will check, does it have the cryptographic signature or the NFT or the whatever blockchain signal, uh, that identify the provenance of this content as like a genuine piece of content, a genuine video.
So I think, you know, that if you put together crypto and AI, uh, then you get, you know, something that can create content and things. At an amazing scale while still guaranteeing the provenance and the genuine aspect of those contents.
Marc: So it's kind of interesting because that leads nicely into our ninth subject, which is reluctance.
I think there are [01:03:00] certain brands, for example, dove, where they might say, you know what? We have always stood on the core value of truth, of transparency. We are proud of the individuals who use Dove. So do you envision certain brands shying away from artificial intelligence? And if so, why?
David: You know, that's a typical human behavior.
That's. It's not new. It didn't emerge just with artificial intelligence. You know, if we go back to the industrial revolution, there was this movement called the Luddites who were so afraid of the industrial revolution of those new machines that would replace them. The workers in the workshops that they came, you know, in the factories at night with big hammers, and they would destroy the machines in order to make sure that their jobs would not be replaced by machine.
And, you know, those were the Luddites. And that's why now each time we get a new element of disruption, you have those [01:04:00] people that we might call the Neo Luddites who think, okay, we're going to destroy the technology. We prefer, we prefer the ancient world. We prefer the ancient version of the status quo.
Uh, I think that usually, you know, history is rarely on the side of people who burn books. History is rarely on the side of the people who have big hammers and destroy the machines. It seems, you know, it, it's a good, you know, uh, communication initiative from Dove, dove. You know, dove is well known for being about authenticity, you know, all like real beauty, what they call real beauty, which are, you know, all kind of beauty plus size models.
All kinds of skin tones, all kinds of ages and so on and so forth. So in, in terms of communication, I think they did a great job. It's a great campaign. You know, they published this real beauty manifesto where they promised they will never use AI as a trend. I would say more brands will benefit from AI and will actually leverage AI than brands that will walk out, walk away from this [01:05:00] technology.
However, I would say, you know, you have to do it in the right way, you know, just like, you know, where. Brands started to pay attention to sustainability and, um, you know, some brands did it in a genuine way and some way some brands did what we ended up calling greenwashing, you know, where they just like, say, Oh, we recycle papers, but at the other end of the spectrum, they pollute all the water and whatever.
So. This is not perceived that as genuine. Similarly for AI, I think whatever brands are going to do with AI, it has to be perceived as something that's meaningful, that enhances the experience. And that's not just a gimmick or a gadget, or else we might see, you know, the emergence of, I'm creating a word right now, but of AI washing, you know, or LLM washing or gen AI washing, and this will not be better than greenwashing or, or all those, uh, all those things.
Marc: So if the 10th, if the 10th subject is risk, AI risk, what happens to companies then just to take your concept that you're describing a little further, [01:06:00] what happens to companies? Who don't embrace artificial intelligence. There are really two benefits in the luxury sector for consumer goods. There's the data analytics, which you're obviously very active with as it relates to submarine and there's the content creation.
Those are the two tent poles that we could argue. Will we see companies in the luxury sector who fail to embrace these new technologies and artificial intelligence slide a little bit? Will they, will they
David: lose ground? Probably, I think, you know, it's similar to what happened when luxury started to embrace The internet, you know, at first luxury brands were very reluctant with regard to anything digital and the internet and social media and e commerce.
Many luxury brands said, it's not for us. We don't want to touch it. It's a, it's so far from the luxury experience. You know, I remember there was this quote from 2013 from mutual Prada. And she said, you know, we don't like e commerce. Uh, I don't think it's good for us. We would, [01:07:00] uh, or this other quote from Phoebe Filo, who back then was at Selene, uh, and she said, you know, I would rather walk naked in the streets than put my brand on Facebook.
And she said, also, I would rather people experience a selling product in a selling store and not online. I think, you know, that if with the benefit of hindsight, those people were wrong and they actually. Changed, you know, they, they changed their mind, even, even Phoebe Filo, you know, when she launched her own brand, she launched it as a fully digital launch.
So we see that it's normal that people can be a little reluctant at first. Uh, there is, there will be an advantage, not necessarily to the first person or the first brand that will embrace AI, but there will be an advantage to the first one that does it in the right way. Uh, I think there will be a fast mover advantage, you know, there is this, uh, American expression that I, that I love, uh, which says, you know, that the first one, uh, gets the pearl, the second one gets the oyster, uh, you know, so I think there will be a benefit of those who will build the first AI augmented Luxury [01:08:00] experience.
The first who will hire the right minds, the right talents, the first who will create the vision for the luxury sector. Definitely they will benefit versus the one who will be laggers or who will embrace it a little later, who would make it less strategic. Probably they can, uh, you know, they can be impacted in a negative way.
However, I would say there is also a risk of adopting it too quickly. Uh, you know, if we think about, for instance, of some other technologies, other disruptive technologies that ended up not disrupting much of, uh, uh, our daily lives, sometimes some brands go too quick on them and they waste a bit of resource, a bit of time, a bit of money.
So for one example, that comes to my mind, uh, you know, when the, uh, Apple vision pro headset emerged. A lot of people thought spatial computing, you know, this new era of computing that Apple was promising us, uh, they thought spatial computing will revolutionize everything immediately. And many luxury brands started to [01:09:00] experiment with it.
You know, like I can think of, there was an app from the Balenciaga, you know, in the fashion world, or there was an app from Elf in the Elf cosmetics in the beauty world who would leverage Apple vision pro and create. You know, experiment with it and create an experience on it in the end. You know, like Apple has stopped the production of their headsets.
It seems like it hasn't revolutionized much. Maybe it will come at another, in another version in the future, and it will end up being very promising. But for now, it seems like those efforts were for nothing. So there is also a risk of getting too quick. You might lose a bit of time, lose a bit of resource.
Marc: I'm still a big fan of spatial computing. I'm not letting that go. And I believe perhaps that goes back to trend number two hardware. If Apple can find a way to enhance and improve the user experience, perhaps it could be much better, David. It's interesting because fashion. Is so forward is so strategic with regards to leading when it comes to, uh, imagery and, and gorgeous styles and designs, [01:10:00] uh, geometry and engineering.
It's always fast forward, but with technology, to your point, we always go slow, right? We were the last ones in the e commerce game for sure. And now, now it's become a multi billion dollar sector. There are brands, however, like Hermes. that are real advocates of their tradition, particularly as it relates to artisanal craft.
And that takes me to the 11th trend today, the concept of desire, artificial intelligence and desire. Do you think artificial intelligence can Play a role at replacing a luxury brands, superior designers. Do you think that artificial intelligence can play a role at even replacing a luxury brand like Hermes, there are T they're artisans because I recently heard their creative director in an interview talk about the fact that they'd like to create more, more product, or at least allegedly they [01:11:00] would, but they just don't have enough trained talent.
If we have an AI trained. Or let's say a CGI level robot sitting in one of the RMS factories and perfectly building that Birkin bag. Will the world have more Birkin bags? What happens to desire as it relates to artificial intelligence, but I know you covered that already, specifically relating to a luxury brand's ability to create superior product?
David: I think it's the opposite. I don't think AI will replace luxury brands or luxury craftsmen. I think they will highlight. Even more how relevant luxury craftsmanship, luxury brands are. And I think why, because I think what makes. A luxury good, like a Birkin handbag or some Berluti shoes makes them so relevant.
So desirable is not their perfection. It's their flaws. There is, you [01:12:00] know, um, an article from one of the greatest researcher on luxury marketing called Jean Noël Capferrer, who used to be my professor when I was studying luxury. And he wrote, you know, the anti laws of luxury marketing and how luxury brands are.
Turning marketing upside down in order to create desire. And one of the anti laws of luxury marketing is no flaws, no charm. And the specificity of a luxury good is that because it bears the mark of the craftsman that created it, because it was handmade by a human. It is not perfect. It is full of flaws.
And that's what we love. We love the patina that leather gets with time. We've, we love those, um, you know, the, the patina of ability shoes, the scratches on the side of a Rolex watch, uh, and so on and so forth. They tell a story. And I think as of today, AI is great at creating perfect product. You know, let's, let's take an example, Mark, if you had to, uh, Choose [01:13:00] between two planes for your next travel.
One plane is made by the most sophisticated robots using lasers and computer vision and AI. And the other plane is handmade by a craftsman using a 19th century hammer. Which plane will you go on for your next travel? Personally, I'm sticking
Marc: with the former, put me on a space X jet all the way to Paris and I'm with you.
David: So that's my point. You know, for a plane, you want something that's highly technological that has, you know, the most advanced technologies. Now let's think about you. You want to give a gift. To someone you love in your life, do you want a natural diamond, you know, found, uh, you know, by Cartier and put on a Cartier ring?
Or are you interested in a lab grown diamond that use, you know, like thermonuclear kind of physics to transform a bit of carbon into diamonds? Which one do you prefer?
Marc: Definitely the former. I appreciate the artisans that work at, you know, famous time piece brands like Vacheron [01:14:00] Constantin, who have a specific form art form level of knowledge.
And it takes for a long time to create those beautiful pieces. I'm with you on the diamond.
David: So that's my point, you know, so for some goods in your life, you're going to want technology. So, you know, the rocket ship, the plane for some other. The soul of the product, you know, what's behind it, it's story will be more important.
And that's going to be for your luxury goods.
Marc: David, I think the 12th and final trend that we're going to talk to as it relates to artificial and luxury perhaps is the most important and it hits your sweet spot data analytics. And it could be very boring for people, right? But it is a way for brands to unlock a ton of commercial value.
What do you see happening? Specifically beyond what we discussed already with submarine, what do you see happening with regards to the advent of artificial intelligence in data analytics for brands that are in the luxury sector?
David: I think that's one key role of anybody working in marketing. Whether it is in luxury or [01:15:00] in other, any other industry is to be able to read the minds of their audience.
You know, you need to anticipate their desire. You need to understand the shift in their behaviors. You need to understand what's important for them, what words they're using, what trends they're following and so on and so forth. And I think that over the last few years, the digitization of everything made, you know, the collection of data.
Much easier. So any brand, any marketer as of today can access billions and billions of data points. So, you know, you know, like the average time people spend on your websites, their path to purchase on e commerce. You can tell the reach of your posts on social media. You can measure everything and you get plenty and plenty of data.
What you can do now with AI is. Make sense out of all this data and understand, you know, like getting some insights on the, the psyche of your, your consumers or your future consumers. Sometimes, you know, you can know [01:16:00] in real time what's happening right now. You know, I gave you some, some examples in the fragrance industries, uh, of, you know, like trends that were emerging that brands can leverage right now.
Sometimes you can even. So for instance, I did like a fun experiment with a submarine, uh, as you know, there is this company called Pantone and every year Pantone, uh, elects the color of the year. So maybe you've seen that the one of, uh, of this year it's called Mocha Moose. So it's a, it's a texture and a, and a color.
And I did a fun experiment. So of course, you know, last year submarine didn't exist. It's a brand new company. So I could not do it for, for this year's color, but I looked. Knowing that spent on said that's mocha mousse is the color of the year. Could I have identified this color by looking at data from luxury brands?
Cause we know that luxury brands, fashion brands, they are at the vanguard of trends, the, the, the tip of the spear in terms of trends and knowing what, what is desirable for people. And by looking at data from the last 12 months, [01:17:00] I was able to identify the rise. Of the moose texture and the mocha color. So you can see it in makeup.
There are like campaigns from Mac cosmetics campaign from a nukes, uh, and so on and so forth. And you see this trend emerging 12 months before, uh, Pantone was able to, uh, to identify it. So one challenge that I will give to myself for next year, I will predict the Pantone color a few months before Pantone announces it.
I will put it on the blockchain so that then I can guarantee I had it. I can guarantee the time at which I predicted it and we'll see how accurate my prediction is.
Marc: I want to follow you on that. That's amazing. David, you've been so generous with your time. I finish every single show the same way.
Essentially, I provide a leading question. I'm going to start the sentence with the integration of the show's name, some future day, and then my guests all finish that sentence. Are you game? Let's do it. So, in some future day, specifically 2025, luxury brands will integrate [01:18:00] artificial intelligence into their world with a particular emphasis on
David: With a particular emphasis on creating an experience that's more human and not less.
Marc: I like it. I like it. David, thank you so much. You've given me so much insight and knowledge and it's been a fun conversation mainly. So I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you so much for having me, Mark. It was a pleasure. I know your time is very important. So thank you so much for joining me today for ongoing insights surrounding these important topics You can join the conversation on my social media channels Including Twitter Instagram and LinkedIn at mark Beckman and to sign up for my newsletter on Substack you can find me at mark Beckman dot substack dot com To make sure you don't miss a show.
Be sure to subscribe [01:19:00] To some future day across all major platforms worldwide, including YouTube, Spotify, and Apple. Special thanks to New York university for producing some future day and a big shout out to my producer extraordinaire, John Boomhoffer for being patient and always encouraging me to push through.
Thanks a lot, John. Have a great day.
Marc: [00:00:00] Will Gucci take off? Is Hermes dead in its tracks? Artificial intelligence is a superpower that will launch the luxury sector into the stratosphere, but only for brands wise enough to embrace the new technology now. Think
David: about craftsmanship. Think about storytelling, the myth, the stories that luxury brands.
tell about their products. All this is going to be a very precious skill in this AI augmented future. David
Marc: Klingbell is the founder and CEO of Submarine AI and a professor at New York University who specializes in the luxury sector. Who better to break down the opportunities and threats which exist perfectly at the intersection of AI and luxury.
Ben
David: David, nobody. It brings me a lot of enthusiasm. So that's why it feels like we're entering a new golden age.
Marc: On this [00:01:00] episode, Mr. Klingbell weighs in on how AI will transform the relationship between luxury houses and consumers vis a vis new hardware. AI augmented storytelling, fashion robots, and of course they got to pay cryptocurrency.
David, thank you so much for joining me on this important AI episode of Some Future Day. David Klingbell, it's such a pleasure to have you join me on Some Future Day. I'm really excited to see you today. How are you? All good. Thanks for having me, Mark. It's such a pleasure. We were just talking before the show started and it's rare that I get to meet an expert that is sitting directly at the intersection of luxury and technology.
I love that. I love that in you. Um, I know you do too. You appreciate the finer things in life. I see the Jeff Koons statue of the dog sitting above you. Um, as it relates to. Artificial [00:02:00] intelligence though david i've been struggling with this concept in my head go back let's go back in time think about the year twenty twenty one it was twenty twenty one not too long ago when open it a i officially launched dali to the public and.
In my mind, I wonder as it relates to the adoption enterprise adoption specifically of artificial intelligence. I often struggle with this idea of like, is nothing happening? Is there no user adoption at the corporate side? Are brands really not using artificial intelligence? So they came out, they exploded with Dolly too, and people tinkered with it.
But what are the companies doing? What are the brands doing? Is it just not sticking?
David: Yeah, it's true that generally speaking, when we think about disruptive technologies, such as AI, um, it seems like those technologies always follow the same kind of pattern. And it reminds me of a quote from Ernest Hemingway, you know, the [00:03:00] American author, uh, when he was asked how he got bankrupt, he said in two ways, first gradually, then suddenly.
And it seems like for AI, we're seeing the same kind of movement. Like AI is not something new. You know, if you think about during a second world war, uh, the allied, uh, the allies had, uh, you know, the, this machine, the two ring machine to crack the Enigma code. And this could be seen as the first steps, you know, of artificial intelligence and how it was used to decipher the codes of the Nazi and ended up helping the allies winning the war.
Uh, so artificial intelligence is not new. Uh, but yet some, there is a new. Acceleration. It's a, it's a new phase in the, in this technology that has started a few years ago. And if you think about it, we've been talking about AI for business users for many years. I don't know if you remember this video that emerged a few years ago.
of Will Smith. This was like a fully AI generated video from stable [00:04:00] diffusion. You know, you had Will Smith eating pasta in the same thing. He was eating his finger. The video was really weird. He had like 11 fingers. It was very strange. That was only two, three years ago. It was revolutionary. You could transform.
One prompt into a video and look at now, like just a few years after this weird video, look at Sora, look at what's meta AI is doing. Look at, look at runway ML and Pika. Now we can create super realistic videos that can be used that, uh, that can be used in ads that can be used, uh, in experiences that. All of the brands and all the luxury brands are now playing with.
So just like Ernest Hemingway said, it's, it was gradually for the longest time, and now since a few years, it's been suddenly, it looks like an overnight change that has been prepared for a very long time. So
Marc: David, you mentioned a lot of the better brands as it relates to text to video. Um, you know, their advancements and also are we over the time period of six fingers and three eyeballs and, you know, spaghetti [00:05:00] going crazy or, or are we still at that spot?
You know, that's funny.
David: I, uh, I used to, uh, like I used to say to my students recently that I am old enough to remember the time where you could spot an AI created image by counting the numbers of fingers. So. I think, you know, this very basic hallucination has been fixed, you know, like, uh, I think images and videos generated by AI are now way more realistic, way more convincing, you know, for better, for worse, you know, it means we can, uh, we can create great assets, great assets for brands, but you can also create deep fakes that can be also very misleading.
Uh, but yet. I think that this phenomenon of AI creating things that doesn't exist, you know, that we call hallucination, this phenomenon is still there, is still here, and I don't think there's any way to fully patch it to fully, you know, suppress hallucinations. And, you know, like a few weeks ago, my parents asked me to teach [00:06:00] them chat GPT.
They wanted to use chat GPT in their personal life. And I told them, you know, I teach them how to prompt. I taught them how to use a dolly and a chat GPT and so on and so forth. But I told them, you know, beware, don't take everything that AI says for truth. You know, sometimes it hallucinates sometime, you know, it's a, it invents some numbers, some dates and so on and so forth.
So I think even though the obvious hallucinations are over and the quality is much higher. There is still a lot of hallucinations going on and we should all be careful.
Marc: But David, let's stay focused on the text to video content creation tool. I think that's really valuable, particularly for the luxury sector.
If you were advising a luxury client to use one of those tools, because it has quality output, but it's also easy to use, which tool would you recommend?
David: Well, that's a good question. I think it depends of the use case. Um, you know, I think there are [00:07:00] some. Tools that are really good at doing things in general.
So let's say you want to create video, um, you know, runway ML is good. Pika is good. Uh, I think, you know, you have a tool called cling that also, that's also interesting. Uh, those are, you know, easy to use tools that can be leveraged immediately by your creative team. You know, you'll start prompting and in a, in a minute or so you will have some assets that you can use.
You can create storyboards, you can create videos and so on and so forth. I would say in the future, what's going to be more and more prominent, more and more interesting, is to stay very close to open source AI, and I think that You know, on the side of those very big models that are raising hundreds of millions of venture capital money and creating super advanced AI technology, such as the one I just mentioned, you also have some small and nimble models that are created by passionate people, open source community online.
Uh, and definitely I would, if I were a brand today, I would. You know, [00:08:00] look very closely at the open source movement. Most specifically, I would look at hugging face, you know, hugging face. Is this a platform that acts at, as a repository of all the open source models, all the open source data sets, uh, and all the conversations around the open source.
So I would, you know, uh, I would look at it very closely. I would experiment with some smaller model. I would play with it. You know, I would keep a very, I would keep an open mind, a creative mind and, and see what can we do with those smaller and nimbler models as well.
Marc: I agree with you. I'm a big advocate of open sourced AI.
I like the concept of decentralized artificial intelligence for several reasons, including the issue of hallucination. And I think innovation comes from the entrepreneurs. I think. It's worth noting at this point that you actually have your own artificial intelligence platform named submarine AI, which is super cool.
Do you want to quickly take a second and mention what it is that submarine provides for the [00:09:00] luxury sector? We're going to get back to it in detail, David, but since we're at this intersection, why don't you, why don't you talk about submarine for a minute?
David: Yeah, sure. So what submarine does, uh, it's a way for luxury brands to quickly identify.
Emerging trends within their industry. So basically what submarine does is, uh, we're watching millions of videos from all the luxury brands. So think about watches and jewelry fashion, but also beauty and cosmetics, automobile yachts, and so on and so forth, and, uh, the AI watch. All those videos and identify what are the trends, the topics, the celebrities, the events, the products that are mentioned in those videos.
And it creates trend reports that executives in the luxury industry can leverage to stay in touch with, uh, the emerging trends.
Marc: So that's pretty interesting, because I think a big problem that we've had historically with regards to trend analytics in the luxury sector is that [00:10:00] brands rely on data analytics, um, and they can't get to that data for a certain period of time.
I know brands like LVMH, for example, will have five or six data analysts. That are analyzing different data sets. And it takes about 15 to 30 days typically to, to analyze the data, compile the data, and then report back into that C suite of executives, CEO, CFO, CMO, are you suggesting that submarine can provide, let's say the CMO with data in real time and no longer does the CMO need to rely on a data analysts work?
David: Exactly. I think the key word here is the difference between data and insights. And there is this quote that I really love from the former CEO of Unilever. And he used to say, data makes your briefcase heavy, but insights make you rich. And I think, you know, data is plentiful. You can find data everywhere.
There's like millions of videos, millions of posts, millions [00:11:00] of interactions from your websites and clicks and impressions. So data is not a scarce resource at all. What is scarce is like making sense of this data, finding some actionable insights that you can derive from all of this data. And that's what Submarine does.
Submarine collects all the data, uses AI to analyze it and make sense out of this data. But then in the end, the end result is a report that a CMO or an executive at a luxury brand can read in a few seconds, in a few minutes to stay informed and updated about the latest trends.
Marc: Okay, so that's super cool, David.
I know everybody listening to the show wants to achieve what you're talking about. The end goal is to generate revenue, to make money, to create new forms of income. So could you give a hard example of what type of insight submarine might provide a CMO with so that in turn, that could, that could create new streams of revenue or quicker streams of revenue, please.
David: Yeah, definitely. I think for [00:12:00] me, what makes my job so interesting is that every day I discover some new sets of trends. Some of them can be big trends that are kind of obvious. Some other can be micro trends that are very disruptive and very surprising. And it's always so interesting, you know, to discover them.
One that I've discovered recently, I was looking at the fragrance category, which is, you know, a big driver of business for luxury brands. And I was. You know, asking myself, how is this category evolving? What is changing in this category? Because if you look at fragrance ads in general, uh, they are always very weird.
You know, like the, the typical fragrance ad is a beautiful woman running in a field of flower and then jumping in the air. And there's a beautiful guy that hugs him, hugs her. And it's written, you know, I don't know, Chanel number five. You know, it's like very weird, very surprising. So it's always interesting to see how our brands and creators and influencers talking about this category.
And what, and I've identified recently that there are a lot of new behaviors that are emerging [00:13:00] within the fragrance category. One that I found very interesting, uh, I called it fragrance maxing, and it's a whole set of behaviors from, uh, influencers and fragrance experts who are now finding new ways to maximize the impact of their fragrance.
So for instance. You have like some people have created videos and tutorial encouraging people to put their bottle of perfume in the freezer or in the fridge for a few hours before wearing them so that it will last longer. I've seen some other people who are hacking. The actual bottle of perfume, you know, therefore, you know, the spray to be more powerful and to have like more of it, uh, sprayed.
Uh, there's another one. You have like some really surprising and a little bit crazy influencers who do what I called greedy spring. So they will spray 30 or 50 times their fragrance on them to, you know, maximize the impact or the smell of the, of the fragrance. So all these are kind of anecdotes, but I think it's very interesting because [00:14:00] it shows how.
People are, you know, using fragrances in a different way, in a more creative way, in a playful way, sometime in a very extreme way, which can be inspiring if you're a fragrance brand and you want to think, you know, how you can set your next campaign apart from the ones of your competitors. So that's something fun that I saw recently on Submarine.
Marc: Yeah, David, that's really interesting. So I take as a chief marketing officer, as a brand manager, I take that insight, fragrance, maximalization, and I can impact my product design. I can make a stronger scent, right? With the, the noses at Simrise and IFF and Givaudan, I can, um, on my own now create a new type of delivery system.
My primary pack, my primary packaging can have more oomph when the fragrance, when the mist comes out. And of course the fun part, my content creation. My ad campaign can also underscore that point. And, you know, that's super valuable. I could see where a CMO would make the link all the way to executing [00:15:00] on those plans and creating new streams of revenue.
So, and
David: just like, as you said, you know, it's, I think it's both on the short term and in the long term. Because long term it can impact your product development, but also short term, you know, for instance, like submarine tracks, all the ingredients that are used in skincare and beauty products. And so let's say there were like, for instance, there is a trend that emerged recently about fermented ingredients, things like kefir kombucha and so on and so forth.
That's used to be, uh, ingredients that were in food, but that are now making their way into beauty as well. So let's say you're a CMO brand. And you realize that within your portfolio of products, you have some products that have some of those trendy ingredients like turmeric, like Jojoba oil, like Edelweiss flour, and so on and so forth.
But you didn't highlight them that much in your campaigns. So over the short term, you could decide to launch maybe an organic campaign on social media or a partnership with an influencer to promote something that's already in your product. So you can even leverage those trends over [00:16:00] the short term. And of course, also in the, over the longer term for product development.
It's interesting
Marc: that you landed. On the culinary or food space, Bath and Body Works is one of my clients, and you might be aware they are one of the biggest, excuse me, they are the single biggest fragrance company in the world, and their candles that kind of align with culinary, the candles that are food, even they did the Stranger Things pizza candle, um, have been performing exceedingly well, so it's interesting that you're providing that insight, David, but I was going to mention earlier that Is that it's worth noting to the audience, your background, you didn't just come up with this idea and say, Oh, I love luxury.
And I have this cool affinity for AI. Your background is with Google. You spent years and years and years of analyzing data and looking at technology. So this is a, um, this is the submarine is effectively the upshot of years and years and years of your personal growth and knowledge and development.
Correct. Yeah,
David: exactly. You know, [00:17:00] I worked for Google for six years and I had the weirdest job you've ever heard of. Uh, because as a global insight lead, my job was to look at what people were searching for on Google, what they were watching on YouTube and how they were behaving on like all the different via all the other, the differences, audience signals in order to identify, you know, those nuggets of gold.
That's what we call insights. And then my job was to share those insights with luxury and beauty brands, uh, in order to help them in their digital strategy, their advertising strategy, and so on and so forth. So for six years, you know, I've worked with all of the luxury and beauty brands you can think of, you know, going from LVMH to Chanel and Hermes, uh, L'Oreal, Estee Lauder, Cody, and so on and so forth.
Uh, and you know, I was. Working with them, helping them identify those, you know, weak signals that we could see in, in data in order to inform, uh, their, you know, consumer and market insights, uh, teams and their marketing [00:18:00] teams, digital teams, and in order to help them understand consumers better. So that was what I, what I've been doing for a while.
Marc: It's really, really interesting. Thank you for sharing that. And I know that you've been tinkering a little bit personally with your own LinkedIn. Profile and just over the past few days, maybe a week or so, you were able to surpass the 100, 000 view mark, um, because you've been looking at insight and driving that forward.
Do you want to talk to that real quick?
David: Yeah, I think, you know, in, uh. I think in, in today's day and age, people are hungry for insights. They're hungry for interesting information that will help them understand the consumer better, help them prepare the next campaign, help them invent the next product. Um, and I think, you know, you know, this, uh, as, as well as I do, you're, you're also a professor at an, at NYU, just like me, and you can see the impact of sharing an information the right way.
With the classroom and you can see how we can impact, you know, the career, the [00:19:00] life of, uh, of the students. And so I was just, you know, coming back from six weeks of intense teaching at NYU. I was teaching like eight hours a day, five days a week for six weeks. Wow. That was kind of intense as you, as you might imagine.
Very intense. And I felt, you know, I, it felt so good. It felt, it feels so good to share information, to interact with students, to answer the questions and so on and so forth that when I was back, you know, home and I would like my semester was over. I thought, how can I continue, you know, creating some interesting insights and sharing it with people.
And I thought, how can I do it at a reach that's. Even higher than just sharing it to a classroom of 60 to 80 students. And so LinkedIn, you know, appear to be like the right platform to share the information. Cause I'm, you know, I'm sharing information about insights, about luxury and about the luxury business.
So I felt, you know, Twitter or X was not the perfect platform for that. So I just started, you know, posting every day. One interesting. Thoughts or insights [00:20:00] about luxury, and it seemed that immediately people started commenting, reacting, reposting on, you know, it has started so many, you know, interesting conversations and, you know, great relationship with people that I think I'm going to continue doing this.
Who knows, maybe if we do a second episode of podcast together, maybe in a year, maybe I'll reach like the million impressions. Let's see.
Marc: I hope so.
David: I hope
Marc: so. So David, focusing back on the trajectory of artificial intelligence, as I said, it's feeling like we're in this rut. I, I think you're more optimistic than most as am I.
Where would you say we are as it relates to the growth of artificial intelligence? Are we entering a certain type of golden age? Will we see the trajectory skyrocket now and brands will actually be able to use these tools and implement them? You mentioned earlier that the quality of the content coming out from tools Like runway R is superior now better perhaps than where it was [00:21:00] two years ago or so.
So where would you say we are as far as the growth goes? Would you, would you consider us entering an age of, you know, a new era, an age of AI?
David: Definitely. I think, you know, like when I look at what I'm able to do with AI, uh, with Submarine. ai. I'm the amount of data we can now analyze the, how deep we can go into the analysis using just, you know, a few, uh, open source AI or API APIs from the, from the big AI providers.
I think it's incredible. And the, the, the quality and the amount of things that someone who's into AI. And who's familiar on how to use it in the optimal way. The amount of things that someone could do today, uh, is incredible. Like it feels like what you can do today with one person and a few, uh, LLMs used to require 15 people and six months, uh, five years ago.
So for me, when I, when I see all of this, [00:22:00] it's, you know, I understand it can be a little overwhelming. It can be even a little scary. And it's true that, you know, last year or two years ago, when Chad, GPT started to show the first signs of being so promising and so, so smart. A lot of people were afraid, you know, they thought, will AI take, take my job away?
Will I replace me? What will be my role in society with, uh, uh, you know, world full of, of AI. Plus, you know, AI is just getting smarter and smarter every year and cheaper and cheaper every year. Uh, you know, like the, the AI we, we have now, uh, it, it will never be as bad as it is right now to only get better from here, you know?
So I understand, you know, there can be some, some doubts, some fear. Uh, around all this, but for me, I look at it with a much more optimistic and positive outlook because I see what AI is allowing me to do. I'm also seeing how my students are leveraging AI. So if you think about the next generation of leaders, uh, you know, like, [00:23:00] uh, as I said, My semester of teaching just ended a few days ago.
And I remember at the beginning of the semester, I asked my students, Okay, which AI tools are you using? So, of course, they all know ChatGPT. But that was pretty much it. You know, they were not using AI that much. And they were kind of afraid. They were skeptical and afraid about AI. By the end of the semester, after, you know, doing a bit of evangelization and convincing to them, after encouraging them to use Mid journey, RunwayML, Perplexity, and other AI tools for their homework and their projects.
By the end of the semester, the quality of the things that my students were able to create using AI was incredible. Like the last assignment I gave them was to create To imagine a collaboration between two luxury brands and to create an ad for this, for this collab and keep in mind, those students are not designers.
They're not like artists. They are business [00:24:00] school students. And yet the ads that I've created were so professional. You could have posted them on Tik Tok or Instagram the next day so much that for their final jury, I had a senior vice president of Estee Lauder, the Estee Lauder group that was in the, in the jury.
And he said, can I get the contact of three of the groups to introduce them to the brands? Because what those students were able to create with AI was like. Of a quality that's similar to what we would expect from a professional. So for all of those reasons, you know, I feel very optimistic. I think people should not be afraid of AI, but they should be afraid of like they will not be replaced by AI.
They will be replaced by people using AI if they don't adapt. But if they adapt, people will be enhanced, enhanced by AI. It will, you know, like, let me give you another example. Let's say you mark, maybe you have like some creative ideas, maybe you have a lot of creativity within yourself and I'm sure you are, you have, you, you're, you're a professor, you're [00:25:00] a podcast host, so I'm sure you have a lot of creative ideas prior to AI.
It was hard to express them like if you don't know how to draw, if you don't know how to paint, if you don't know how to use Photoshop or create a video, it's hard to express this part of your personality now with AI. I see we're entering. In an era where people like you, people like me who have idea, but not necessarily the technical creative skills suddenly can express themselves and create something that they can use for work or in their personal life or as a gift to their friends and family, which is, you know, very, um, it, it brings me a lot of enthusiasm.
So that's why I, it feels like we're entering a new golden age.
Marc: I love that story that you shared with your students. I think it's worth noting. I had a similar experience with my students at NYU. No one is experienced there as it relates to design or creativity, solely individuals with a business background.
They were able to create over the course of the [00:26:00] semester and no experience. It was like tabula rosa, no experience in AI at all. Over the course of the semester, they were able to implement a comprehensive program, which came to life a comprehensive program regarding the launch of new products, and they came to life in the form of logos, primary packaging, secondary packaging.
Um, in store environments, print campaigns and video campaigns. It was fantastic. They also used artificial intelligence on the data side, David, which I think you'll appreciate they helped. They used AI to create data sets and then develop a marketing strategy that included several different. Um, several different elements, including paid social paid search and beyond programmatic advertising, these types of elements.
So I'm like you, I'm a very optimistic individual when it comes to artificial intelligence. I believe we should accelerate, go faster, go deeper into [00:27:00] it. However, as you know, a lot of our colleagues in the luxury sector. Are reluctant, they're afraid, and they don't know what to do. So what I'd like to do is break down with you the 2020, 2025 AI trends and risks, specifically as it relates to the luxury sector.
I asked you to help put together 12 areas of concentration. The first one that we wanted to focus in as it relates to luxury brands is the issue of counterfeiting. As you're very well aware, teaching in New York. Canal street is like a counterfeiter's dream. People come from all over the world to pick up their fake Gucci, their fake Vuitton, their fake Rolex, it's bananas.
So in your mind, how can AI help luxury brands fight counterfeiting?
David: Yeah, definitely. That's, you know, one of the first business use cases of, uh, you know, of AI for luxury brands will be to identify fake products. [00:28:00] Uh, in an accurate and scalable way, because as of today, the only way we have to know if a product is a genuine or fake luxury good is to rely on sales people with, uh, in the stores, you know, if you bring.
Um, you know, like a, a watch to a Rolex store, uh, and ask for a repair, and then the Rolex person realize, oh, that's not a real Rolex, that's a fake. Um, you know, that's today the only way we have to, to tell if a luxury good is, is genuine or not. Yet, there are like some startups that are emerging and leveraging technologies such as image recognition, pattern recognition, uh, you know, um, computer vision and so on and so forth.
Some startup are now leveraging ai. To identify a genuine versus counterfeit luxury goods. One example that comes to mind is a startup called Anthropy that has been You know, in business for a few years now, but it seems like their technology is getting more and more accurate, more and more precise, [00:29:00] and they're they're able via the app to tell you just with a few pictures of a luxury handbag to tell you if this luxury handbag is it.
a genuine or a counterfeit one. So they will ask you to take a picture of the label, to take a picture of the corners, take a picture of the, um, you know, like the metal parts, the leather parts, like a few specific details. And they have a database of millions of images of tens of thousands of different handbags.
And they're able to identify some specific detail that will separate and distinguish the counterfeit from the genuine. And I think. This is even more important as we all know that secondhand luxury or pre owned luxury is a huge business opportunity that is growing a lot and that will continue to grow in 2025.
And one of the big issue and challenges of secondhand luxury is that, you know, if you mark a, you want to buy. Uh, pre owned Hermes handbag, uh, for your [00:30:00] loved one. Your biggest fear is that if you don't buy it at Hermes, you know, if you're going to, if you buy it on a secondhand luxury platform, your biggest fear is going to be what, what if I buy a fake one?
And what if I'm paying too much for something that's not actually a Hermes handbag? And I think that the, in 2025, we'll see more and more of those secondhand luxury platforms leverage technology. Alongside what they're doing currently, which is like hiring experts that will identify, uh, the genuine versus the counterfeit luxury goods, but we'll see more and more technology being involved in this process.
One other area where I think, you know, AI powered, um, counterfeits recognition will, uh, will make a big impact is also, you know, on. Everything that's like life commerce or social commerce. I think that 2025 will definitely be the year where TikTok shop and maybe other social shops and life commerce will emerge in the West.
[00:31:00] You know, this is a trend that's already very big in Asia, but it's becoming bigger and bigger now in the West. Uh, and I know that for instance, TikTok has a partnership with entropy in order to identify luxury handbags and luxury goods. Uh, on their second hand, you know, pre owned luxury platform. So it's say that's like the first and most obvious use case of AI that we're going to see emerging in luxury.
Marc: That's interesting. I was going to ask you if in the S commerce sector, this type of artificial intelligence will be integrated into the user experience. So are you saying that Anthropy and, and TikTok actually have a deal where as one is shopping on TikTok shop, they can figure out whether or not a Birkin bag is real.
Is it integrated into the user
David: experience? So it's, it's, it's integrated in the backend. So any, um, any luxury good pre owned luxury goods you would buy from the TikTok, uh, pre owned, uh, like officially approved pre owned platform on TikTok shop would be checked [00:32:00] by entropy, uh, which would give you like, um, a sort of guarantee that it's a real one.
Uh, so for now it's more happening in the backend. It's not something that the user will do live on, on the app.
Marc: I see. That's very interesting. That's going to accelerate. I'm sure at some point it will be integrated into the user experience to another section that I'm really interested in as it relates to AI trends in 2025 is hardware.
David, I think until we get hardware perfect, it's going to keep us at a slower pace than you and I would hope for. What do you think is on the horizon as it relates to hardware that delivers a utility? Yeah, absolutely. Experience for AI that, um, delivers a, an easier, lighter, uh, more seamless experience for consumers with AI.
David: Right. Yeah. I think, you know, when it comes to connected objects or wearable, uh, technology, I think that a lot is happening right now. And I feel like way more is about to happen over the next few months [00:33:00] or years. Uh, you know, we used to say that wearable devices were. Wearable, but actually nobody was actually wearing them because they were ugly and awful.
So if you think, like, if you remember, for instance, of about, like, think about the Google glass, remember those device that look like you were in a star Trek movie. I mean, for me, I used to love them. I used to find them very futuristic, very interesting, but let's, you know, let's, let's be honest. Most people don't want to wear a weird, a cyborg looking device on their, on their eyes.
So that was like the past, you know, those wearable device, nobody wanted to wear them. I think, you know, what's changing now is that tech companies are partnering with luxury companies in order to create hardware and wearable devices that people will want to wear. And the big example that comes to my mind on this topic is what Neda has done with Ray Ban.
So Ray Ban is probably one of the most famous high end slash luxury, uh, sunglass manufacturer. [00:34:00] And when meta decided to launch their own AI powered sunglasses, they, they've decided not to create the design themselves, but to partner with a brand that knew how to ignite desire, uh, in their consumer's mind.
And therefore I think that this partnership between meta and, uh, uh, Rayban could be, you know, one of the first example of an AI powered luxury product, uh, which, you know, I would suspect maybe. More and more of those could emerge in the future. Uh, it's of course not the first one. It's not the only one like we all have in mind as well.
This whole trend of connected watches, smartwatches and many luxury brands have participated in this trend. Maybe you remember the Louis Vuitton Tambour Horizon, which was a connected watch from Louis Vuitton. In part, it was a partnership as well between LV and Google, Google Android. So. It's not necessarily like a brand new thing that tech and luxury are partnering.
There's also, you know, the Hermes and Apple [00:35:00] watch a partnership that was, you know, very acclaimed by, by a lot of people back in the days, but it seems like with AI, we're entering a whole new era. So I would not be surprised if we see more of those AI powered luxury goods emerging soon.
Marc: Yeah, I hope so. We just haven't seen a true breakthrough yet where it's easy and exciting.
And to your point, chic for the consumer, it's just, it's just not quite there yet, which is disappointing. Perhaps we'll see something that's not exactly hardware, but some growth as it relates to contact lenses, providing data and information for the consumer soon.
David: Yeah, that would be, that would be the dream, you know, like what's beautiful with technology is.
When technology disappears, when it just feels like magic, you know, uh, so I feel we're not there yet, but, you know, maybe we're a few iterations from a technology that will actually feel like magic, you know, with miniaturization with like the increase of computing power with the increase [00:36:00] of. Cell phone networks and so on and so forth.
Maybe we're just a few iterations from something truly, truly magical.
Marc: David, I think the third AI trend is controversial. The concept of AI augmented storytelling. The reason I think it's controversial is because. Perhaps people, consumers, don't want to be told what to buy anymore. Perhaps we're entering an age where we see consumers becoming part of the story, shaping the story itself.
Do you think artificial intelligence will totally reshape the art of storytelling between 2025?
David: So I don't think, I don't think it will totally reshape it, uh, yet, maybe in the future, but, uh, but it will definitely enhance it. And I think, you know, like you're very right when you say consumers don't want to be told what to buy.
And I think that the way luxury brands [00:37:00] sell things is not about telling you to buy. And there is this, uh, thing that I usually say to, to my students, which is that luxury is not just about selling. Luxury is about igniting the desire to buy, and it sounds like, you know, marketing BS and just like another way of looking of saying the same thing, but it's not.
I think, you know, those luxury brands, they are masters at igniting desire, which by the way, you know, in an era where everything that a human can do can be done better by AI, you know, which we're not there yet, but it will probably soon be the case. There's one thing that AI is not that good at is igniting desire.
You know, like, let's take one example. I know Mark, you're, you're a big fan of music. I know you're a big fan of the Beatles. You've named your, your son after some songs of the Beatle. I know you've interviewed some rock stars. How much AI generated music do you listen to on a daily basis? [00:38:00] Zero. Zero. Right.
Because it's correct. You know, AI generated music is good for elevators, maybe like, you know, ambience music in elevators. Maybe if you call a call center and you have a little bit of AI generated music, why not? But in fact, nobody desires it. You don't have this connection that you can have with human created music.
And I think, you know, that's going to be one of the assets for luxury brands is that they know something that AI is very bad at igniting desire. So think about. Craftsmanship, think about storytelling, the myth, the stories that luxury brands tell about their products. All this is going to be a very precious skill in this AI augmented future.
So that's what, that's what I think for illustrating.
Marc: Yeah, I agree with you. I think that as it relates to music in particular, and I talk about this in my new book, a songwriter, someone like Bob Dylan during the 60s, he really had his finger on the pulse [00:39:00] of humanity, on what the people at the street level really wanted, these songs of revolution, this Social justice movement in the sixties, it was really important and he connected with all of those people.
I don't know if algebra. Right. If generative AI, if math can have that same emotional connection for all of the arts, right. For music, for, uh, fine, fine art painting and beyond. I think there might be missing that element. I get into that in my new book, and it's an interesting thing to, to examine.
David: Yeah. And you know, when you study luxury, the deeper you go into.
Theories and concept of luxury, the more you realize that there is something in common between luxury and art and between luxury art and religion, and that's something that's deeply human, which is a connection with something that is bigger than just, you know, the atoms that are that are making this world, you know, just like, [00:40:00] you know, religion is about Answering what happens after life, you know, what, what is this notion of eternity and what happens after just like art, art is connecting with something, you know, that is bigger than a human being that is, that transcends mankind.
And that's also, there is this notion of eternal and forever. Similarly, you know, in luxury, you have this notion of timelessness luxury supposed to be timeless. So all those notions of religion, art and luxury. Are connected with this notion of this relation to time, timelessness, life and death and so on and so forth, which is very human.
And, you know, I never want to say AI will never be able to do it because AI is very surprising. You know, I see it on submarine. AI can identify trends that are extremely surprising that maybe no human could have identified or analyzed that way. But as of today, you know, like, so, so I'm always uncomfortable saying AI will never do it, do it.
But as of [00:41:00] today, it seems like AI is not good yet at doing those things that are deeply human, which are, you know, this link with desire, this desire for human connection and so on and so forth. Going back, you know, to the example of music, you know, when music got digitized. People stopped buying CDs. You know, when I was a kid, it was, you know, as a birthday gift, everybody was giving, you know, like a, uh, an album, which was an object.
It was a plastic box with a cover and a little CD inside. Now nobody would do that. I don't even have anything to play a CD at my place. I only have digital music. So now we stream music. So there is no object of music. It's just an access to, uh, to the information. However, Today, more than never, people are going to concerts.
People are going to festivals. They want to connect with other people. Look at the success of a Taylor Swift tour, how many billions were generated by those kinds of events. Look at all those people going to burning man, going to ultra, uh, you know, electronic music festival. [00:42:00] It's not like that music disappeared the day Spotify emerge, just that it has shifted to something else.
So likewise, I think that When everybody will be able to create amazing visuals and products using AI. Then maybe we will shift what we value towards something else. And I suspect that this something else will be closer to the kind of experiences that luxury brands provide.
Marc: So it's an interesting thing.
If you really consider what we're talking about, we're not talking about storytelling. We're talking about story making, and then you mentioned Taylor Swift. And that kind of leads me to our fifth trend in artificial intelligence. for 2025. The idea of virtual influencers, maybe that's the tell the storyteller specifically.
So you have the beautiful song that's created and then delivered by an artist. Will virtual influencers, metahumans be a thing in 2025?
David: So I think that's for sure what's going to [00:43:00] happen. What is already happening right now is that. Virtual avatars are becoming more and more realistic, more and more convincing.
So it say that technically the technology is ready for more brands and more people to use. Virtual avatars, virtual influencers in their experiences and in their campaign. And once again, this is not something that is entirely new. Uh, there were some virtual influencers that have been working with luxury brands for a while.
Uh, one of the most famous one is a virtual influencer called Lili Miquela. So Lili Miquela is an Instagram account. Uh, offer 3d generated, the person, uh, lover tells, um, um, their life online explaining, uh, like their daily lives, their relationships and so on and so forth. And little Michaela, for instance, has partnered with many luxury brands who've hired little Michaela for a campaign for a post.
Uh, they posted online. Uh, you also have, you know, some, some luxury brands have created their [00:44:00] very own, uh, Virtual influencers. So for instance, I have in mind one example from Balmain, you know, Balmain has a community of fans that they call the Balmain army. So if you're a fan of the, of the Maison, you are part of the Balmain army.
And for one of their fashion shows, they've actually featured some virtual members of the Balmain army, which are virtual avatars of people who are, uh, you know, virtual fans of, uh, Balmain. So all this, you know, has existed and has been used by luxury brands over the last few years, but it feels like now the technology.
is becoming so realistic, so scalable as well. So now it's, it's very easy to create a virtual avatar. It's very easy to create a virtual celebrity, which are influencer. So think about what companies like 11 lab or Hey, Jen are doing where you can create an avatar of yourself and create videos. You know, you just like, like film a few footages of your face and you reading a text, and then you just input another text that you've never said.
And you will see your avatar saying that, uh, that other [00:45:00] text. So it seems like the technology is ready now. My question would be, I don't know if the people are ready. So do we, will it feel a little bit weird? Will it feel a little bit cringe to have virtual influencers? Let's see. Let's see if people are convinced by them.
And therefore, you know, my question would be, will tomorrow's virtual influencer, will they be very realistic? Like, will they look as if they were real people or the opposite? Will they be very, uh, like, They come out of the imagination. Will it be like there is one virtual influencer? I can't remember its name, but it's actually a sausage.
So it's a sausage with hair. So it's the opposite of being realistic. And this, for instance, this, uh, influencer was used for a Hugo Boss campaign. So I wonder if the future is Creating ultra realistic virtual influencers or the opposite ultra fantastic legendary virtual influencers who whose hair are actually fire and whose skins are rainbow or whatever, you know, like something someone who has like five arms and wings.
[00:46:00] So I don't know in which direction. Luxury brands, fashion brands are going to go, but definitely the tech is ready for them to leverage it.
Marc: I think there's a real utility as it relates to allowing for a luxury brand to create a personalized experience for its shopper, for its consumer with a virtual influencer, for example, how many times do we either online or in brick and mortar enter a.
Luxury world, and it's a poor experience. I'll walk into, you know, any luxury brand on 5th Avenue, and I want somebody to help me with a new leather jacket. The person that approaches me, I don't like, I don't like them. I can't relate. I don't understand what they're talking about. They're too pushy. They're of a different generation.
I can't understand their accent, whatever it might be. So perhaps virtual influencers. Meta humans can create a customized and personalized [00:47:00] experience specifically for the consumer to enhance that experience so that the individual selling, trying things on, et cetera, are more relatable. That's a good segue into the sixth concept, the sixth trend area, David.
Just before segueing
David: into this concept, just to react to what you say. So what you're describing is the core of the luxury experience, the retail experience. This is. An immensely important element of the path to purchase and the luxury experience and in theory. Luxury retail is like a temple is like a theater.
The store, the flagship is supposed to be the pinnacle of the luxury experience. It's supposed to embody the vision, the vision of the world of the creative director and his or her team. And it's supposed to be a perfect experience. But in reality, as you just said, the kind of experience that are delivered.
In some stores [00:48:00] are set bar are, um, frustrating are, you know, disappointing. And. If you are a happy few, you're going to have the best experience. You know, you're going to have your private store. You know, Chanel has their own VIP private store. Uh, you know, if you take a brand like show me, you know, the, the jewelry brand that creates diadems and tiaras for the royalties of the, of the world.
They have, you know, a private room on Place Vendome, the most beautiful place in Paris. They have the Chopin Salon, which is like a room where Chopin, the music composer, wrote his last piece. So there is still the piano on which Chopin has created his last piano song. And so you, if you are one of the happy few, you will have the best experience you can imagine.
You will have champagne, you will have a dedicated salesperson that knows everything he or she has to know about yourself. A lot of personalized attention and so on and so forth. But the reality is that in parallel to the happy few, you have the unhappy [00:49:00] many and the unhappy many. There are waiting in line in front of the Hermès store.
They are waiting in line in front of the Louis Vuitton store. They arrive and the bag they wanted to buy. They are being told it's not available. It's not in the right color. It's not here. Uh, they are impressed, you know, by the luxury store. So they, they are a little bit intimidated and they don't dare to enter.
So why not, you know, as you were suggesting, why not including some AI elements and some virtual avatar elements in order to bring the level of service of the happy few to the unhappy many, that would be an idea. You know, if you ask me personally. I would think this would be a bit sad. You know, I think I would rather, uh, we would have the opportunity to bring a human experience and a good experience to more people.
So it's a little bit sad that we have to, um, that we cannot offer this happy few experience experience to more people, but you know, that's, that's a possibility. That's definitely a possibility.
Marc: Well, we could definitely start in the digital realm, right? So my [00:50:00] Hermes experience could be heightened if the metahuman sharing insight with regards to new product launches and fit and beyond is in the is created in the form that I like.
I think that this concept of virtual influencers or metahumans specifically as it relates to a digital experience is also going to shift the way we analyze Customer segments, uh, demographic profiles, and maybe even psychographic profiles too. We're still very, uh, behind as it relates to the way that demographic profiles are broken down.
We break it down by age and, and, you know, geographical location by average household income yet. You know, that seems to be like blending a lot more. I think we could take smaller slivers. I could talk in terms of this person might be, um, a middle aged white guy who really loves sports and is socially open to everything in the world.
And, and I would speak differently to this [00:51:00] individual versus perhaps. My mom, right? So it could be a real advantage, I think, and actually enhance the luxury experience if they started with metahumans to personalize, uh, that level. So getting into customer service, I mean, that's another area where it's complicated.
I think that most people complain about customer service. It's always a bad experience. And I wonder if luxury brands in the customer service sector can benefit through the use of artificial intelligence in 2025.
David: Yeah, definitely. I think we're, we're very early on this domain and most customer service as of today is still being offered by, you know, regular old school humans.
But it seems like once again, the technology is ready now to either enhance, uh, the people, the human who are delivering, uh, uh, customer services in order to know more about the audience, sorry, to know more about their clientele or to deliver a better quality of service. So that's one possibility, or [00:52:00] another possibility would be to invent some, you know, digital chat, some like another possibility would be to invent some chatbots that would deliver customer service in an elevated way, a more sophisticated way using AI.
And one example of this, uh, you know, the luxury group Kering, the group that has Gucci, Saint Laurent, and many other luxury brands, they created a division called KNext. So it's spelled K N E X T. X. T. And which is their sort of incubator of technologies where they experiment with many technologies. So they've created a lot of Web three and metaverse experiences, and now they seem to be focusing way more on A.
I. And via this K next division. Kering has invented a sort of personal shopper that they called Madeleine, which will give personalized recommendation to clients. So for now, it's only giving recommendations for Kering products. So it would have to be, uh, for, from one of the brands owned by Kering. Uh, [00:53:00] but you would go to Madeleine, uh, tell, uh, tell her a bit more about yourself, what occasions, what were you looking for, what's your style and so on and so forth.
And Madeleine would identify What are the shoes, the outfit, the accessory, the bag that would be the best for you, given the information, uh, you, you've given her, um, which by the way, you know, like it's a little bit of a, uh, I'm being sidetracked a little bit, but I'm thinking about something. I don't know if you've realized that, uh, Mark, but you know, it's interesting, the words that we're using when we're talking about AI versus the words that we're using when we're talking about other technologies.
So for instance, when you are searching for something on Google. You're using a verb. You're saying, I'm gonna, I'm Googling it. Okay. I'm gonna Google AI for luxury. I'm gonna Google, where's the store for from Louis Vuitton. This is a verb. Whereas for ai, AI is not a verb. We don't say, I'm gonna charge g pt, we're gonna say, I'm, I'm gonna ask charge GPT.
So it's very to see that [00:54:00] already, you know, in the vocabulary, AI has become a person, whereas search was a verb. Was an action. AI is a person. And it's interesting because the way luxury brands are leveraging AI is also by creating a person, an avatar, a bot. And so it's funny because I think the words that we're using are revealing a lot of things that we have in mind and what's in our subconscious.
So that's like a little fun fact to keep in mind. Well,
Marc: David, I think that's a real fun fact. And I, I, um, naturally go to the concept of AGI and how nice would it be if the first meaningful AGI is in the luxury sector with our seventh concept. Robots. I know that you had a unique experience personally, a robotic experience at something called escape.
Do you want
David: to talk about that a little bit? Yeah, exactly. So I met the team at escape a few weeks ago. Uh, they came for a guest lecture in my NYU class and they gave a demonstration of their technology. [00:55:00] Uh, and in the end, they, uh, they gave me a voucher to try their first robotic spa. Uh, so they have a partnership with all the Equinox gyms in New York, as well as a few other places in the country.
And so I went, and so what escape does is that they've created, they've put together some very sophisticated robots and camera and advanced technologies, and they've created a robot that can give you a massage. As good as what a massage therapist would give you. So you had that massage, David? So I've had that massage.
So I went in New York city. I actually, I actually went to their location in Miami and, uh, and so you go there, you put, uh, you put on a specific outfits, uh, which is like a very tight outfits that the cameras of the robots can recognize all the areas of your body. You lay down on it, on a table. So you put your head, you know, within a hole where you have a screen in front of your eyes, and then you can customize all the elements of the massage.
You can say, I want it harder, softer. I want it to focus on the [00:56:00] shoulders or more like on the lower back and so on and so forth. You press a few buttons and then you lay down and you have those robotic arms that are vibrating, that are heated, that are pressing just the right points on your back. Like, you know, looking at your reactions and so on and so forth.
And I must say that this was mind blowing. You know, this is just, it's just the very beginning. You know, this is the first robotic spa, the first version of this robot imagines by escape, but I think imagine what, what it could look like in two, three years, five years, 10 years, the kind of the level of service that we will be able to deliver via robots.
It was very inspiring. I
Marc: think we're going to see it happen quicker because it appears that with the advent of manufacturing technology in robotics, we are on the way to less expensive, personalized robotics. I wouldn't be surprised if Elon Musk and his entire platform are [00:57:00] offering individual robotics in house for less than 10, 000.
imminently. I believe that that's going to happen.
David: Yeah, definitely. You know, it's, I don't want to speculate too much on the, on the future because you know, I'm guilty of something. I was guilty of something. And I think you were guilty of that crime as well. When web three and the metaverse started to emerge, we all believed that it will revolutionize everything overnight.
And I still believe that crypto blockchain that web three will revolutionize things at the end of the, uh, at some point, but. It's taking way more time that we, than we thought. So that's why since, you know, um, I think three years ago I had this, I created this class at NYU called the new codes of luxury in web three and the metaverse, and I was telling the students, it's, it's about to happen.
It's about to happen. NFTs are going to be the new luxury goods. Web three, the blockchain is going to be used to fight counterfeits. Digital products, passports are going to emerge. And I still believe they will, [00:58:00] but. You know, it's taking a bit more time to reach a mass scale. So I would say for AI, you want me to be patient with my AGI, Elon Musk, masseuse.
I mean, we need people like us who are, who are impatient, who are optimistic, who think, you know, everything's going to happen overnight. We, we need dreamers. So we are dreamers. We are dreaming about this future happening right now, but, you know, let's not be too disappointed if it takes a few years to actually happen.
Marc: Well, it's a good segue into our eighth trend, which is the merging between artificial intelligence and crypto blockchain web three, we're going to see a lot of that. I think the new administration is really going to unleash American ingenuity investment. A lot of growth. I anticipate will happen within the next few months.
The United States in the next four years, at least, but let's face it, you covered this a little bit before there's an issue with regards to trust. You mentioned it a little earlier. How do you see artificial intelligence and web three coming together as it [00:59:00] relates to the trust factor?
David: Yeah. So this is the key to what's going to happen over the next few years is the cocktail, the mix.
Of AI and crypto, because AI in some way can disrupt our notion of time. So things that used to take a lot of time can be done much faster thanks to AI, while crypto disrupts the notion of trust. So things that required a third party, someone to trust, to validate or prove something can be disrupted and can be done directly using crypto.
And I think that if you put together those two technologies, AI for time crypto for trust. And even I would add a third layer. And if you add immersive technologies like AR, VR, that's disrupt. Uh, places, you know, it disrupts, you can go to places without moving. So I think that if you put together those three technologies, you get a cocktail that's a pretty unique, but going back to your [01:00:00] question of AI and crypto, it's true that.
AI is a tool that will allow the best and the worst to emerge. So the best, you know, we'll have like, probably I think over the next few months or the next few years, we will see the first billion dollar business that has only one employee emerge. I think that that's the power of AI. It could replace a whole team.
To the point that individuals or small group of individual will be able to create unprecedented value and wealth. So that's the good thing. I'm sure AI will also be used to save lives. I'm sure AI will use to solve complex problem and so on and so forth. But there was also the dark side. Where, you know, AI is just a tool.
It doesn't care if you're using it for good or for bad. Just like a knife. You know, a knife can cut your meat and, uh, you know, save you from starving, or you can stab someone and kill, uh, and kill an individual. Same for the fire and so on and so forth. AI can also allow the worst, you know, like we will have like some scams that are [01:01:00] powered by AI, some deep fakes that are so realistic that people will get fooled.
You know, I'm, I'm imagining, you know, in a few, probably we'll have some cases in a few months of, you know, like maybe. Someone's grandmother that gets scammed by a sophisticated deep fake of her grandkids asking her for money and just being scammed. So, you know, some terrible thing might happen with, uh, with AI, but I think this, the solution to those, uh, you know, claims of misinformation or deep fakes and so on and so forth is to add a layer of crypto because if I add a cryptographic signature to any crypto, All the assets that I produce.
So let's say if I say each time that I'm gonna create a video, I put it on the blockchain using technologies that are already available as of today. You know, cryptographic signatures, NFTs, uh, you know, blockchain explorers, and so on and so forth. So each time I put a piece of content, I would put it on the, I put, I would put a a, a mark or a trace on the blockchain that would.
Allow you [01:02:00] to identify the provenance of this piece of content. And at first, you know, maybe you will have to manually check, you know, like you're seeing a video of me. That looks a little weird. You're going to check on my blockchain. Is it a real David King bells content or is it a fake, but maybe at some point, this technology will be, you know, embedded directly in your browser or in your phone.
So you, you wouldn't have to do anything like your phone would immediately check. All the videos you're watching, all the content you're reading, and it will check, does it have the cryptographic signature or the NFT or the whatever blockchain signal, uh, that identify the provenance of this content as like a genuine piece of content, a genuine video.
So I think, you know, that if you put together crypto and AI, uh, then you get, you know, something that can create content and things. At an amazing scale while still guaranteeing the provenance and the genuine aspect of those contents.
Marc: So it's kind of interesting because that leads nicely into our ninth subject, which is reluctance.
I think there are [01:03:00] certain brands, for example, dove, where they might say, you know what? We have always stood on the core value of truth, of transparency. We are proud of the individuals who use Dove. So do you envision certain brands shying away from artificial intelligence? And if so, why?
David: You know, that's a typical human behavior.
That's. It's not new. It didn't emerge just with artificial intelligence. You know, if we go back to the industrial revolution, there was this movement called the Luddites who were so afraid of the industrial revolution of those new machines that would replace them. The workers in the workshops that they came, you know, in the factories at night with big hammers, and they would destroy the machines in order to make sure that their jobs would not be replaced by machine.
And, you know, those were the Luddites. And that's why now each time we get a new element of disruption, you have those [01:04:00] people that we might call the Neo Luddites who think, okay, we're going to destroy the technology. We prefer, we prefer the ancient world. We prefer the ancient version of the status quo.
Uh, I think that usually, you know, history is rarely on the side of people who burn books. History is rarely on the side of the people who have big hammers and destroy the machines. It seems, you know, it, it's a good, you know, uh, communication initiative from Dove, dove. You know, dove is well known for being about authenticity, you know, all like real beauty, what they call real beauty, which are, you know, all kind of beauty plus size models.
All kinds of skin tones, all kinds of ages and so on and so forth. So in, in terms of communication, I think they did a great job. It's a great campaign. You know, they published this real beauty manifesto where they promised they will never use AI as a trend. I would say more brands will benefit from AI and will actually leverage AI than brands that will walk out, walk away from this [01:05:00] technology.
However, I would say, you know, you have to do it in the right way, you know, just like, you know, where. Brands started to pay attention to sustainability and, um, you know, some brands did it in a genuine way and some way some brands did what we ended up calling greenwashing, you know, where they just like, say, Oh, we recycle papers, but at the other end of the spectrum, they pollute all the water and whatever.
So. This is not perceived that as genuine. Similarly for AI, I think whatever brands are going to do with AI, it has to be perceived as something that's meaningful, that enhances the experience. And that's not just a gimmick or a gadget, or else we might see, you know, the emergence of, I'm creating a word right now, but of AI washing, you know, or LLM washing or gen AI washing, and this will not be better than greenwashing or, or all those, uh, all those things.
Marc: So if the 10th, if the 10th subject is risk, AI risk, what happens to companies then just to take your concept that you're describing a little further, [01:06:00] what happens to companies? Who don't embrace artificial intelligence. There are really two benefits in the luxury sector for consumer goods. There's the data analytics, which you're obviously very active with as it relates to submarine and there's the content creation.
Those are the two tent poles that we could argue. Will we see companies in the luxury sector who fail to embrace these new technologies and artificial intelligence slide a little bit? Will they, will they
David: lose ground? Probably, I think, you know, it's similar to what happened when luxury started to embrace The internet, you know, at first luxury brands were very reluctant with regard to anything digital and the internet and social media and e commerce.
Many luxury brands said, it's not for us. We don't want to touch it. It's a, it's so far from the luxury experience. You know, I remember there was this quote from 2013 from mutual Prada. And she said, you know, we don't like e commerce. Uh, I don't think it's good for us. We would, [01:07:00] uh, or this other quote from Phoebe Filo, who back then was at Selene, uh, and she said, you know, I would rather walk naked in the streets than put my brand on Facebook.
And she said, also, I would rather people experience a selling product in a selling store and not online. I think, you know, that if with the benefit of hindsight, those people were wrong and they actually. Changed, you know, they, they changed their mind, even, even Phoebe Filo, you know, when she launched her own brand, she launched it as a fully digital launch.
So we see that it's normal that people can be a little reluctant at first. Uh, there is, there will be an advantage, not necessarily to the first person or the first brand that will embrace AI, but there will be an advantage to the first one that does it in the right way. Uh, I think there will be a fast mover advantage, you know, there is this, uh, American expression that I, that I love, uh, which says, you know, that the first one, uh, gets the pearl, the second one gets the oyster, uh, you know, so I think there will be a benefit of those who will build the first AI augmented Luxury [01:08:00] experience.
The first who will hire the right minds, the right talents, the first who will create the vision for the luxury sector. Definitely they will benefit versus the one who will be laggers or who will embrace it a little later, who would make it less strategic. Probably they can, uh, you know, they can be impacted in a negative way.
However, I would say there is also a risk of adopting it too quickly. Uh, you know, if we think about, for instance, of some other technologies, other disruptive technologies that ended up not disrupting much of, uh, uh, our daily lives, sometimes some brands go too quick on them and they waste a bit of resource, a bit of time, a bit of money.
So for one example, that comes to my mind, uh, you know, when the, uh, Apple vision pro headset emerged. A lot of people thought spatial computing, you know, this new era of computing that Apple was promising us, uh, they thought spatial computing will revolutionize everything immediately. And many luxury brands started to [01:09:00] experiment with it.
You know, like I can think of, there was an app from the Balenciaga, you know, in the fashion world, or there was an app from Elf in the Elf cosmetics in the beauty world who would leverage Apple vision pro and create. You know, experiment with it and create an experience on it in the end. You know, like Apple has stopped the production of their headsets.
It seems like it hasn't revolutionized much. Maybe it will come at another, in another version in the future, and it will end up being very promising. But for now, it seems like those efforts were for nothing. So there is also a risk of getting too quick. You might lose a bit of time, lose a bit of resource.
Marc: I'm still a big fan of spatial computing. I'm not letting that go. And I believe perhaps that goes back to trend number two hardware. If Apple can find a way to enhance and improve the user experience, perhaps it could be much better, David. It's interesting because fashion. Is so forward is so strategic with regards to leading when it comes to, uh, imagery and, and gorgeous styles and designs, [01:10:00] uh, geometry and engineering.
It's always fast forward, but with technology, to your point, we always go slow, right? We were the last ones in the e commerce game for sure. And now, now it's become a multi billion dollar sector. There are brands, however, like Hermes. that are real advocates of their tradition, particularly as it relates to artisanal craft.
And that takes me to the 11th trend today, the concept of desire, artificial intelligence and desire. Do you think artificial intelligence can Play a role at replacing a luxury brands, superior designers. Do you think that artificial intelligence can play a role at even replacing a luxury brand like Hermes, there are T they're artisans because I recently heard their creative director in an interview talk about the fact that they'd like to create more, more product, or at least allegedly they [01:11:00] would, but they just don't have enough trained talent.
If we have an AI trained. Or let's say a CGI level robot sitting in one of the RMS factories and perfectly building that Birkin bag. Will the world have more Birkin bags? What happens to desire as it relates to artificial intelligence, but I know you covered that already, specifically relating to a luxury brand's ability to create superior product?
David: I think it's the opposite. I don't think AI will replace luxury brands or luxury craftsmen. I think they will highlight. Even more how relevant luxury craftsmanship, luxury brands are. And I think why, because I think what makes. A luxury good, like a Birkin handbag or some Berluti shoes makes them so relevant.
So desirable is not their perfection. It's their flaws. There is, you [01:12:00] know, um, an article from one of the greatest researcher on luxury marketing called Jean Noël Capferrer, who used to be my professor when I was studying luxury. And he wrote, you know, the anti laws of luxury marketing and how luxury brands are.
Turning marketing upside down in order to create desire. And one of the anti laws of luxury marketing is no flaws, no charm. And the specificity of a luxury good is that because it bears the mark of the craftsman that created it, because it was handmade by a human. It is not perfect. It is full of flaws.
And that's what we love. We love the patina that leather gets with time. We've, we love those, um, you know, the, the patina of ability shoes, the scratches on the side of a Rolex watch, uh, and so on and so forth. They tell a story. And I think as of today, AI is great at creating perfect product. You know, let's, let's take an example, Mark, if you had to, uh, Choose [01:13:00] between two planes for your next travel.
One plane is made by the most sophisticated robots using lasers and computer vision and AI. And the other plane is handmade by a craftsman using a 19th century hammer. Which plane will you go on for your next travel? Personally, I'm sticking
Marc: with the former, put me on a space X jet all the way to Paris and I'm with you.
David: So that's my point. You know, for a plane, you want something that's highly technological that has, you know, the most advanced technologies. Now let's think about you. You want to give a gift. To someone you love in your life, do you want a natural diamond, you know, found, uh, you know, by Cartier and put on a Cartier ring?
Or are you interested in a lab grown diamond that use, you know, like thermonuclear kind of physics to transform a bit of carbon into diamonds? Which one do you prefer?
Marc: Definitely the former. I appreciate the artisans that work at, you know, famous time piece brands like Vacheron [01:14:00] Constantin, who have a specific form art form level of knowledge.
And it takes for a long time to create those beautiful pieces. I'm with you on the diamond.
David: So that's my point, you know, so for some goods in your life, you're going to want technology. So, you know, the rocket ship, the plane for some other. The soul of the product, you know, what's behind it, it's story will be more important.
And that's going to be for your luxury goods.
Marc: David, I think the 12th and final trend that we're going to talk to as it relates to artificial and luxury perhaps is the most important and it hits your sweet spot data analytics. And it could be very boring for people, right? But it is a way for brands to unlock a ton of commercial value.
What do you see happening? Specifically beyond what we discussed already with submarine, what do you see happening with regards to the advent of artificial intelligence in data analytics for brands that are in the luxury sector?
David: I think that's one key role of anybody working in marketing. Whether it is in luxury or [01:15:00] in other, any other industry is to be able to read the minds of their audience.
You know, you need to anticipate their desire. You need to understand the shift in their behaviors. You need to understand what's important for them, what words they're using, what trends they're following and so on and so forth. And I think that over the last few years, the digitization of everything made, you know, the collection of data.
Much easier. So any brand, any marketer as of today can access billions and billions of data points. So, you know, you know, like the average time people spend on your websites, their path to purchase on e commerce. You can tell the reach of your posts on social media. You can measure everything and you get plenty and plenty of data.
What you can do now with AI is. Make sense out of all this data and understand, you know, like getting some insights on the, the psyche of your, your consumers or your future consumers. Sometimes, you know, you can know [01:16:00] in real time what's happening right now. You know, I gave you some, some examples in the fragrance industries, uh, of, you know, like trends that were emerging that brands can leverage right now.
Sometimes you can even. So for instance, I did like a fun experiment with a submarine, uh, as you know, there is this company called Pantone and every year Pantone, uh, elects the color of the year. So maybe you've seen that the one of, uh, of this year it's called Mocha Moose. So it's a, it's a texture and a, and a color.
And I did a fun experiment. So of course, you know, last year submarine didn't exist. It's a brand new company. So I could not do it for, for this year's color, but I looked. Knowing that spent on said that's mocha mousse is the color of the year. Could I have identified this color by looking at data from luxury brands?
Cause we know that luxury brands, fashion brands, they are at the vanguard of trends, the, the, the tip of the spear in terms of trends and knowing what, what is desirable for people. And by looking at data from the last 12 months, [01:17:00] I was able to identify the rise. Of the moose texture and the mocha color. So you can see it in makeup.
There are like campaigns from Mac cosmetics campaign from a nukes, uh, and so on and so forth. And you see this trend emerging 12 months before, uh, Pantone was able to, uh, to identify it. So one challenge that I will give to myself for next year, I will predict the Pantone color a few months before Pantone announces it.
I will put it on the blockchain so that then I can guarantee I had it. I can guarantee the time at which I predicted it and we'll see how accurate my prediction is.
Marc: I want to follow you on that. That's amazing. David, you've been so generous with your time. I finish every single show the same way.
Essentially, I provide a leading question. I'm going to start the sentence with the integration of the show's name, some future day, and then my guests all finish that sentence. Are you game? Let's do it. So, in some future day, specifically 2025, luxury brands will integrate [01:18:00] artificial intelligence into their world with a particular emphasis on
David: With a particular emphasis on creating an experience that's more human and not less.
Marc: I like it. I like it. David, thank you so much. You've given me so much insight and knowledge and it's been a fun conversation mainly. So I really appreciate it. Thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you so much for having me, Mark. It was a pleasure. I know your time is very important. So thank you so much for joining me today for ongoing insights surrounding these important topics You can join the conversation on my social media channels Including Twitter Instagram and LinkedIn at mark Beckman and to sign up for my newsletter on Substack you can find me at mark Beckman dot substack dot com To make sure you don't miss a show.
Be sure to subscribe [01:19:00] To some future day across all major platforms worldwide, including YouTube, Spotify, and Apple. Special thanks to New York university for producing some future day and a big shout out to my producer extraordinaire, John Boomhoffer for being patient and always encouraging me to push through.
Thanks a lot, John. Have a great day.