Why Brunello Cucinelli believes AI is the future

Sign up to receive the Vogue Business newsletter for the latest luxury news and insights, plus exclusive membership discounts. In Milan on Tuesday, ultra luxury coincided with artificial intelligence as Brunello Cucinelli unveiled its new website powered by AI. In development for the past three years, the site — BrunelloCucinelli.ai — features a series of immersive drawings that transport the user through different backdrops as they scroll. The further they scroll, vignettes about the brand including background on Cucinelli’s life and “letters to the future sentinels of humanity” appear on the screen. Users can ask questions about the brand, with answers generated by Solomei AI, the company’s bespoke tool. Related information – also generated by AI – is surfaced, in addition to a written response. There’s no menu, and no other areas of the site to navigate — the brand’s main website and e-commerce each remain separate. “We didn’t want to have any pages. We just wanted a website that would follow you as if you had a tailor-made dress, basically. And we wanted this mix of handwork and artificial intelligence,” the eponymous designer explains. The tech was unveiled at Milan’s Piccolo Teatro, in a conference format reminiscent of an Apple event. “Brunello Cucinelli already separates e-commerce from the website about philosophy. In a way, the new website is an extension of that strategy,” says Peter Howarth, CEO of London-based creative agency Show Media, who attended the conference. “He is now thinking: we got this website that talks about my philosophy, but is there now a more immersive way of presenting it? If the thing that justifies the desirability and price of the product is the culture, then you invest in the narrative. For me, the website is a more immersive, engaging way of explaining the philosophy. It’s not telling us anything new — it’s telling us in a new way.” The brand first teased its investment in AI in May, when it hosted a three-day symposium on the technology. In attendance were Alibaba president Michael Evans, Steve Jobs’s widow Laurene Powell Jobs, and LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman. Hoffman previously linked up with the brand, along with Jeff Bezos and other fellow tech titans, five years ago when Cucinelli invited Silicon Valley’s stars to a 2019 symposium in his Italian hamlet of Solomeo to talk business and the intersection of luxury and tech. Solomei AI and the new site are in some ways the product of that. The site was created by a dedicated group of researchers from the fields of mathematics, engineering, art and philosophy; Hoffman provided some feedback. “In fact he was the first to see it,” says Francesco Bottigliero, chief of humanistic technology at Brunello Cucinelli, a role he took on in April 2023. “He told us two things: ‘First, it looks quite new. I haven’t seen anything like that. Second, move fast.’ That’s why we said mid-July, we are going to launch it — even if it’s 95 per cent ready, even if it is in beta.” Brunello Cucinelli — a brand that specialises in highly tactile luxury like fine cashmere, lambskin and wool — is emphasising the human element of its AI offering. It’s positioning it as “human artificial intelligence” and says the project “brings out the best qualities” of both, according to a release. The elevated approach to AI is fitting, as customers who purchase its $4,000 blazers or $10,000 shearling ponchos will be looking for something high-touch. The brand has been resonating in the quiet luxury boom: it crossed its €1 billion target in January and is also a fan favourite among Silicon Valley’s tech set, who rotate Brunello Cucinelli among their uniforms. “The intent is to unite human genius and the power of artificial intelligence,” says Bottigliero. “We imagined a new generation of websites, which is giving up with the page and creating an experience for the visitors live.” Cucinelli demoed it on stage, asking questions like: what is humanistic capitalism? What does Brunello mean by human sustainability? (Part of the AI-generated answer to the latter reads, “His philosophy is rooted in a deep respect for creation and human dignity, believing that sustainability should extend beyond mere environmental concerns to include cultural, spiritual and moral dimensions.”) Fashion brands like Zegna have already experimented with AI shopping recommendations. Within one year, the Brunello Cucinelli team expects to crossover the AI tool with e-commerce; AI can help generate ideas for outfit combinations, for example. Bottigliero offers a potential customer prompt: “I’m going to an important business meeting. I have a blue blazer by Brunello Cucinelli. Which kind of shirt should I wear?” “And in that case, it will switch to the e-commerce site, it will give advice and create the product listing pages,” he says. The executive also noted that AI-produced looks doesn’t mean AI-produced imagery. “We like real pictures.” So why the bet on AI? “The first reason is to make sure that everybody that works with me is not afraid of AI,” Cucinelli says. “I think that people in the next 500 years will remember this century because of AI.” “[The site] is a starting point,” Carolina Cucinelli, Brunello’s daughter and the company’s executive director and vice president, tells Vogue Business after the conference. Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com. More from this author: Richemont weathers luxury slump in Q1 Why Cartier brought its Trinity celebrations to Singapore How CEO Michelle Gass plans to turn Levi’s into a $10 billion business

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