• Chanel CEO Leena Nair visited Microsoft to discuss AI, she told Stanford Business School.
• Nair described an awkward interaction with ChatGPT during his stay.

ChatGPT may be one of the leading contenders in the AI ​​race, but Chanel CEO Leena Nair was slightly less impressed with it during her trip to Microsoft headquarters.

In an interview for the Stanford Graduate School of Business’ “View From The Top” speaker series, Nair said Chanel’s leadership team traveled to Seattle in May to visit various tech companies and startups to understand the impacts potential of AI.

“AI is everywhere,” she said. “And this will transform our world, so luxury must commit to it, Chanel must commit to it.”

However, while there, she had a “funny” moment with ChatGPT.

“We were at Microsoft and we were playing with ChatGPT there,” Nair said. “And we’re like, ‘Show us a picture of a Chanel management team visiting Microsoft’ – it’s just men in suits.”

Nair, previously the first female HR director at Unilevermocked the chatbot’s inability to recognize Chanel’s predominantly female staff and audience, instead describing a “100% male team, not even in fashionable clothes.”

“It’s Chanel. Yes, 76% of my organization is women, 96% of my clients are women, one woman CEO,” Nair said.

She added: “Is that what you have to offer, ChatGPT? Come on.”

Microsoft, OpenAI and Chanel did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider.

As AI has rapidly developed to become less robotic, with the latest version of ChatGPT Model GPT-o4 generating more compelling human responses, Nair said she always urges technology leaders to maintain the “integrity” of their work with AI.

“I’m constantly talking to my friends in the tech industry, every CEO you know, saying, come on, guys, you need to make sure you’re bringing a humanistic way of thinking into AI,” he said. she declared.

Nair said Chanel was still “preparing for AI,” including implementing infrastructure systems, data governance classifications and testing “a lot of experiments.”

“We’re trying little things for productivity, chatbots on chanel.com,” she said.

Nair said the country continues to “relentlessly focus on human creators” and maintain the “freedom” to innovate for artists and workers.

“I never want it to go away,” she said. “So ensuring that AI supports human designers and creation, rather than taking away what they bring with such skill and mastery, is at the heart of who we are at Chanel.”