Luxury is still luxury, but the rules are moving. Demand has been uneven since 2024, travel is reshaping where baskets close, and key regions are operating at different speeds. Leaders are balancing the need to protect equity with pressure to find new growth engines. It is in that tension where the biggest opportunity awaits.
Our new report, "The Future Issue", which we created with Tiago Valente and Thomas Steinbrück, is our look at what happens next. It is built for executives and decision-makers who want signal, not noise. We map plausible paths ahead, define early markers that show which way the market is turning, and outline moves luxury players can make before the curve bends.
Consumers are back, just not all at once and not in the same ways. The rebound has pockets of strength at the very high end, while mainstream luxury is more selective, and increasingly shaped by digital discovery and community cues. At the same time, boardrooms are shifting from pilots to scale on intelligent systems. The conversation has moved from tools to outcomes, especially where AI meets merchandising, clienteling, and service.
Agentic commerce is the step change for luxury: intelligent systems that perceive, plan, and act along the client journey. In practice they keep client books live across boutiques and e-commerce, learn taste, fit, and size nuances, sense demand for capsules and made-to-order, and smooth service without losing the maison’s human touch. Behind the scenes they help pace allocation and content so flagships, select wholesale doors, and digital move in concert. Early movers are seeing lift where it matters in luxury, from private-client repeat and basket composition to cleaner returns and healthier sell-through. The full report "The Future Issue" outlines where to start, what to measure, and the guardrails that protect brand codes.
New-generation clients treat luxury as a social, playable space. Discovery runs through creators, communities, and games, and loyalty grows through access, co-creation, and values. Ownership now spans physical and digital, with provenance, repair, and resale compatibility part of the value story. In this context, brand worlds can evolve into light, on-brand interactive spaces that extend runway moments and retail drops, where play leads to status, early access, or atelier time. Agentic systems translate these micro-signals into tailored journeys across clienteling, service, and content so intimacy scales and the experience still reads as crafted, not automated.
Leaders who set direction and those who make it real. CEOs and boards, CMOs and creative directors, merchandisers, retail and e-commerce heads, and strategy teams pressure-testing 2026 plans.
Reach out to Richard Federowski to receive the full report. You will get the scenarios, the markers to track, and a concise set of recommended moves, packaged for leadership discussion and team activation.
We would like to thank the co-authors Tiago Valente and Thomas Steinbrück for their contribution and our international team.
