MEIKAIBefore the Boutique Visit: How LLMs Shape Luxury's First Impression
As brands prepare for the busiest quarter of the year, much of their attention goes to Christmas campaigns, window displays and the in-store experience. Yet a customer who walks in on 15 December will already have formed an opinion. That opinion may have come from neither the boutique nor the brand's website.
A joint analysis by Bain & Company and Meikai found that many consumers consult large language models (LLMs) before they have a particular brand in mind. Seventy per cent of luxury-related LLM searches do not mention a brand at all. Most of the information these models draw on comes from third-party sources, such as review sites and media outlets, rather than from the brands themselves. For watch-related queries, 90% of the URLs cited by LLMs sit outside official brand websites. For many consumers, an LLM is therefore becoming the first point of contact with a luxury house. An impression that once formed during a store visit can now take shape much earlier, often without the brand's own voice being heard.
Disclosure and method. Meikai is an AI visibility and advertising planning platform, so we are writing about a market in which we operate. The 70% and 90% figures come from the first analysis of its kind conducted jointly by Bain & Company and Meikai. It was published in Bain and Comité Colbert's fifth annual Luxury and Technology report, "Winning Over the Customer in the Age of AI: A New Horizon for Luxury" (30 June 2026).
| WHAT THE JOINT ANALYSIS FOUND | FIGURE |
|---|---|
| Luxury-related LLM searches that don't mention a brand name | 70% |
| Watch-query URLs cited by LLMs that come from outside the brand's own site | 90% |
Source: Bain & Company × meikai.ai joint analysis, 30 June 2026.
What no LLM can replace
The heart of luxury comes next: the feeling of wearing an object for the first time, the stories brought to life by a sales adviser and the atmosphere of the boutique, and the sense of entering a particular world through ownership. An explanation alone cannot convey that experience. It has to be felt in person.
When the impression sets before the visit
The challenge lies in what happens before the in-store experience begins. If an LLM has already given a customer a shallow or inaccurate impression, the boutique has more work to do. First impressions influence how people interpret everything that follows. Whether that impression is fair or not, it is harder to change an established view than to engage someone who arrives with an open mind. Even an exceptional in-store experience may have less impact once the customer has settled on a particular idea of the brand.
What brands should do
Optimising the brand's own website is not enough. Reviews, media coverage and other third-party sources trusted by LLMs also need to tell a coherent story. The message can change to suit each channel, but the brand's identity should remain recognisable. One review site might describe "craftsmanship passed down through three generations", while another outlet reduces the same house to "high-end jewellery". If those descriptions are incomplete or inconsistent, an LLM may present a version of the brand that bears little resemblance to the identity it has built over decades. The first step is to understand how trusted sources describe the brand today, then work with those sources to correct material gaps.
By the time a customer enters the boutique, a story may already have taken shape in their mind. Luxury brands now have to account for it.
How is your brand being described by LLMs when no one searches for its name?
Frequently asked questions
Can luxury brands influence what LLMs say about them?
Not directly. Brands can, however, improve the third-party sources that LLMs already trust, including media coverage and review sites. The aim is to keep the story coherent rather than relying on the brand's own website alone.
Does this mean the in-store experience no longer matters?
No. The in-store experience remains central to luxury. But if an inaccurate impression has formed before the customer arrives, even an excellent visit may not completely undo it.
Method and sources
The 70% and 90% figures come from a first-of-its-kind analysis conducted jointly by Bain & Company and Meikai, published within Bain and Comité Colbert's fifth annual Luxury and Technology report, "Winning Over the Customer in the Age of AI: A New Horizon for Luxury," released on 30 June 2026.