Kering boss Luca de Meo is reconfiguring CEO incentives around desirability instead of top-line growth. AI has made it easier to process data from surveys, social media and more, putting desirability metrics within reach. This marks a fundamental shift in how luxury measures success. For decades, revenue growth was the primary KPI. Now the industry's most powerful holding company is saying: if nobody wants it, sales numbers are meaningless.
Three signals today point to the same infrastructure shift: Kering measuring desirability with AI, Meta being held liable for algorithmic design, and Pvolve becoming a distribution platform.
The next competitive advantage isn't what you make or sell. It's what you measure and how transparently you operate the systems doing the measuring.
For people who’d rather be early and wrong than late and safe.