NEW YORK — The honeymoon period for generative artificial intelligence (AI) could be in decline for somebut Advertising Week New York was still full of talk about technology. Moët Hennessy was among marketers who expressed continued optimism about the prospects of generative AI as an efficiency driver at last week’s annual gathering, while noting that the luxury alcohol category has high expectations for proper execution.
“Having the ability to really personalize a message for an individual or a group of individuals, and then create assets at scale through automation that enable that personalization – that’s a huge opportunity for us,” said Tatyana Ilyin , digital director for Moët Hennessy champagne. and sparkling portfolio, during the panel. “The challenge… is that we have to do it in a way that is luxurious, elevated and doesn’t compromise the integrity of our brands and their ethos. This is really where the human element comes in. »
Ilyin, which helps market brands like Dom Pérignon, Veuve Clicquot and Krug, envisions generative AI in three key areas: content production, consumer experiences and media planning. The executive estimates that her teams spend around 80% of their time on repetitive tasks that do not directly drive the business, including budget allocations, while generative AI could free up more resources for strategy development and brand building.
While Moët Hennessy is generally optimistic about AI, Ilyin stressed that a cautious approach is needed to avoid falling into the shiny penny trap. “Test and learn” became a refrain throughout the 30-minute discussion with representatives from Publicis Media and ad tech company Viant Technology, the latter serving as moderator.
“Ultimately, all brands need to understand and identify the best use cases for them and then deploy a crawl, walk, run approach to this, because we don’t want to ride the fashion wave, so speak up” , said Ilyin. “We want to thoughtfully engage with AI.”
Opportunity Area
Regarding content production, Ilyin expressed a desire to create “automated focus groups” to curate marketing materials, as well as tools that can identify exactly the right visual or audio cues to drive consumer engagement with advertisement. She also highlighted the growing importance of chatbots, virtual assistants and virtual influencers in the luxury industry.
“(The) biggest areas of opportunity are really in customer interaction and discussions with a particular brand and actually automating that process,” Ilyin said.
Winemaker Cloudy Bay Vineyards, also under the LMVH banner, recently deployed an AI-powered chatbot that allows users automatically generate Summer Friday emails outside of the office as part of a broader “Summer Fridays” campaign, as Forbes reports. Moët, the parent company LMVH, carried out several investments in AI companies this year through its owner’s venture capital firm and family office.
Related to media, generative AI was positioned by Ilyin as a potential solution to signal loss, as well as channels like programmatic advertising that have historically been difficult for alcohol brands to navigate. Ilyin explained that discovering programmatic applications of generative AI was a priority for 2025. That said, the marketer argued that luxury brands need to be particularly aware of security, suitability and privacy standards of the brand in order to preserve a high-end image among high-end customers.
“Our customers trust us to respect our data and be accountable for it,” Ilyin said. “We don’t want to take advantage of it just to be more efficient or try something new… but that shouldn’t stop us from trying at all.”
The executive has tested a new AI media planning solution from Viant that relies on a combination of publicly available data and anonymized information from the ad tech company’s demand-side platform. The extent of the relationship with Viant was not immediately clear. The marketer indicated that the current wave of generative AI will impact Moët’s approach to its wider marketing services ecosystem.
“It will also change the way we work with media agencies. I think we will all need to adopt a real test-and-learn mindset as we discover the applications here,” Ilyin said. “But ultimately, I think it will make us much more efficient and data-driven, which is really a priority for me.”
