By Frank Pagano, Shareholder, Advisor, Author
8:00 a.m., Milan, Isola district. A notification on my smartphone announces that the chauffeur who is supposed to take me to the airport is waiting downstairs. The chauffeur, however, is not there. There is only the black electric sedan, driverless, that will take me to the Linate hub, where a private plane is waiting to fly me to New York for Fashion Week. Everything has been organized based on my preferences, carefully recorded by Claude (the reference to Anthropic’s Claude is purely coincidental—or perhaps not), one of my AI agents who manages my image, my wellbeing, my businesses, naturally, and all my relationships with the world. The trip and my stay are calibrated to what I want and need—because the algorithm knows my biorhythm better than I do — from my favorite music in flight, to detours toward a couple of vegan spots in the Big Apple, to the creation of a dynamic local agenda based on who in my network happens to be in New York on the same dates. My dark smart glasses will help hide my eyes before the onboard beauty routine, while at the same time giving me real-time information about everything around me. Claude has asked the Bowery Hotel in New York, where I’ll be staying, for a suite with a robot that will assist me discreetly and promptly, 24/7, during my New York week, and has rented driverless taxis and an electric bicycle, available on demand depending on my meetings, dinners, and parties. The hotel, which processed my digital history in a matter of seconds, is providing me with a drone that will follow me throughout the week, ensuring my safety and creating a photographic and video report to share on social media and with my network. I’ll decide in Milan, together with Claude, whether to turn it into a film or a series of short clips, for my fans or perhaps just for myself. Everything for me. Thanks to AI, the future of luxury is even more centered on me.
Here is a summary of what AI can do today — and will soon do — for the new cosmopolitans. The application of AI to travel, especially premium travel, will do exactly what technology is meant to do by definition: increase efficiency, opportunity, glamour, and memorability. We will live in a world of dynamic ultra-personalization, served up on a silver platter by software and hardware (glasses, robots, drones, earbuds, and the like), turning our lives into footage for fantastic, almost cinematic stories. The destinations of the elite — from the Bahamas to Monte Carlo, from St. Moritz to the Costa Smeralda – will not necessarily change. What changes is the sublimation and dramatization of experiences, which can, if we choose, be made available to luxury brands or travel operators for a fee or shared on social channels to increase social currency and status. After all, luxury has always been about personal affirmation. The best creators, not brands or their communications teams, will become the true drivers of change in the industry. The next film, The Devil Wears Prada, might feature me among its protagonists. Feasible? Let me ask Claude to blend my New York holiday with the film’s footage to create my own version.
AI-powered travel planners are already available online, often in the form of start-ups or apps that promise efficiency and itineraries far from the usual destinations (we won’t name names here, but there are already plenty of them). And AI is already entering the planning and operations of major cruise operators such as MSC, as well as the portals most used by internet users, from Booking to Expedia. MSC, the Italian company that is a global leader in cargo transport and cruises, has introduced AI across the entire customer journey, from the travel agency to experiences on land and onboard. For example, boarding a ship with thousands of passengers will be measured in minutes rather than hours, while staff will know every morning which activities to suggest to each cabin or family, organizing restaurant menus and entertainers’ schedules down to the minute. But there is more to the journey of the future than the necessary efficiency and personalization. And it is not a matter of exotic destinations.
Luxury travel could take us where it was once impossible to go. Blue Origin, Jeff Bezos’s space company — the founder of Amazon — or NASA Mars, NASA’s “shuttle” to Mars (for which it is possible to register on the American agency’s portal), will carry millionaires, the curious, and celebrities into space. Here too, it is not only the experience itself, exceptional though it may be (mind you, a round trip to Mars could last up to 18 months) and, literally, out of this world, but above all the spectacularizing of the experience, which adds stamina and cachet to my life. Luxury has always been a matter of lifestyle, according to a recent The Economist study. AI and technology do not merely sublimate the ego of travelers; they turn them into movie stars. The digital and mental journey created by AI and tech, ad personam, will be the key to forging the new Marco Polos. The physical and digital journey become one and the same, and the pampering of a first-class trip must be directed both at the physical self and at its digital twin. We will go with Claude to the same chic places on the planet, but with a completely new, personal, phygital, and Fellinesque angle. I do not need to tell you in my own words what happened to me in New York. Claude will do it for me, and better than I could. AI will give me the holiday of my dreams and its account for posterity.
Have a good trip!
