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As traditional search engines give way to advanced artificial intelligence and the concept of "agentic commerce" (where AI assistants make purchases on behalf of users), the methods for evaluating brand equity are undergoing a radical shift. In a joint study by communication agency 5W AI Communications and Haute Living magazine, experts introduced a fundamentally new approach to measuring brand authority, WWD reports.

By analyzing how 25 leading luxury brands are represented in AI-generated answers, researchers discovered that more than a third of luxury consumers now utilize AI platforms instead of traditional Google searches before making a purchase. The study evaluated performance across five key platforms: ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Perplexity, and Google AI Overviews. A brand's "visibility index" was calculated based on how clearly, concisely, and consistently neural networks generated information about each label.

Top 10 luxury brands in the era of Artificial Intelligence

The fashion house Hermès topped the ranking, closely followed by Rolex in second place. The watchmaking brand Patek Philippe rounded out the top three, while Cartier and Chanel shared the fourth spot.

The full top ten list is as follows:

1. Hermès

2. Rolex

3. Patek Philippe

4. Cartier / Chanel (tie)

5. Louis Vuitton / Vacheron Constantin (tie)

6. Ferrari

7. Van Cleef & Arpels

8. Tiffany & Co.

Brand performance was measured across five key metrics: archival depth, citation density, clarity of brand essence, editorial consistency, and output stability (meaning the invariance of a brand's description across different platforms and upon repeated search queries).

Why does AI "choose" the classics?

The report highlights that Hermès' leadership reflects the brand's core values: "scarcity, supreme craftsmanship, and an absolutely seamless historical narrative. No noise from sub-brands, no dilution from licensing—there is simply nothing for neural networks to get confused by. The brand comes out on top for almost any luxury-related query."

"In the age of artificial intelligence, first impressions are shaped by a machine's ready-made response," comments Ronn Torossian, founder and chairman of 5W AI Communications. "The fashion houses at the top of this index earned their place the only way possible—they broadcasted the exact same values for a century without variation, until the machine memorized them by heart. This kind of consistency is the modern form of brand equity. Everyone else will now have to build it intentionally."

Regarding Rolex (2nd place), the study's authors noted that the company possesses a "closed catalog and a half-century of unchanged product presentation. Ask any AI system about watches and trust, and Rolex will be the reflex answer."

The study's main conclusion is that AI algorithms favor companies with a clear history that do not change their positioning strategies on the fly. Brands score highly if they avoid creating confusing sub-brands and refrain from frequent changes of creative directors. As the authors of the report summarize, in the digital era, luxury is no longer just about fashion, trends, or expensive boutiques. Today, luxury is the right to own the very answer that the machine delivers to the end consumer.

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