How Navee’s AI Technology is helping Brunello Cucinelli reinforce its legacy in the age of counterfeiting

Brunello Cucinelli’s team sums it up best on how a partnership with Navee has streamlined and elevated their brand protection efforts to a standard only made possible by incorporating the latest AI technology.
 

About the client — Brunello Cucinelli

Brunello Cucinelli, often hailed as the "King of Cashmere," is a luxury Casa di Moda celebrated for its commitment to craftsmanship, sustainability, and humanistic values. With its headquarters nestled in the picturesque Hamlet of Solomeo,Italy, Brunello Cucinelli continues to set a benchmark in the fashion industry by blending traditional artisanal methods with modern innovation, making it a symbol of elegance and purpose-driven luxury.

​​This commitment to the quality of its products and firm accountability for fair labor and environmental impact has made Brunello Cucinelli a shining beacon in the luxury fashion industry, as evidenced by steady growth and a loyal clientele eager to share and advocate the brand’s values. In an era where counterfeit goods infiltrate markets in overwhelming quantities, Brunello Cucinelli partnered with Navee to ensure that its dedication to Italian craftsmanship and sustainability remained uncompromised. Together, they share a vision of technology not as a disruptor, but as a facilitator of positive change. 

Brunello Cucinelli’s key pain points:

• Time-intensive manual processes: Identifying and removing counterfeits was a prolonged, resource-heavy task.

• Mimicked design elements: Counterfeiters replicated intricate details like labels and tags, making manual detection even more laborious.

• Sustainability concerns: Counterfeit production often ignores environmental and labor standards, conflicting with Brunello Cucinelli's values.

Brunello Cucinelli needed a solution that could streamline this process, protect its reputation, and align with its sustainability goals—without adding strain to internal operations. Navee offered that solution, providing a smarter, AI-powered way to manage and protect the brand’s integrity at scale.

The solution: Features that made the difference

1. Advanced contextual counterfeit detection technology based on text and image

Navee’s advanced AI can identify recurring counterfeit patterns in both text and images. Counterfeiters often try to bypass manual detection methods online by playing around with special characters or by intentionally withholding the product or brand name. Navee is able to counter this by continuously generating complex combinations of key words, ensuring such strategy is deemed ineffective. For images, even when small design elements are altered through methods such as cropping, flipping, application of filters, or logo removal, the technology is able to see right through these and label these effectively as counterfeits. Navee’s proprietary semi-exact image search technology dissects each image into key elements and compares them against a vast historical data-base taking into account logos, packaging and other brand assets.

2. Scalability through continuous learning

Navee’s AI technology enhances brand protection through its ability to scale with increasing challenges in counterfeit detection. By leveraging machine learning, the platform continuously refines its detection methods with each counterfeit listing it identifies. This feedback loop allows Navee’s system to improve its accuracy and efficiency over time, ensuring that counterfeit patterns are identified faster and with greater precision.

The platform’s scalability and versatility is essential for brands with diverse product lines and categories. Navee’s system is designed to handle this variety by adapting its approach to the specific needs of different product categories. As the platform processes more takedown actions, it becomes increasingly adept at detecting counterfeit goods, learning from previous cases to stay ahead of emerging threats.

Such was the case for Brunello Cucinelli, especially for a brand known for its excellence across multiple product categories. Navee’s technology showed its strength and capacity despite the luxury brand’s offerings in many categories such as shoes, ready-to-wear, hats, bags and more.

3. A more proactive counterfeit takedown system

Navee’s platform automatically initiates proactive takedowns across digital platforms. The AI analyzes data from counterfeit listings and identifies unauthorized sellers, enabling quick, automated enforcement actions. The platform's efficiency allows for rapid takedown requests across platforms like Google and other e-commerce sites, ensuring that counterfeit products are swiftly removed from the market. The system’s automation ensures that these takedowns happen with minimal manual intervention.

4. Grey market and distribution channel monitoring

Navee’s platform provides comprehensive monitoring across a brand’s online distribution channels, including e-commerce websites, social media, and third-party sellers. Leveraging advanced AI, it tracks counterfeit listings, unauthorized sales, and gray market activity such as price discrepancies, unauthorized vendors, and parallel imports. This data allows Navee to target high-value offenders and tackle the counterfeit cycle at scale, reducing the time between identification and enforcement.

This ensures that products are sold only through approved channels, protecting the brand's exclusivity and maintaining a consistent customer experience.

The Impact: the results future-proofing Brunello Cucinelli’s brand protection strategy

Since adopting Navee’s solution, Brunello Cucinelli has seen notable results that have strengthened its brand protection strategy:

Significant time savings

Navee’s AI-powered automation on all fronts drastically reduced the time Brunello Cucinelli’s team spent on manual counterfeit detection and the takedown process, freeing them to shift their efforts on more strategic activities.

Navee’s system streamlined this process by detecting recurrent patterns in images and text, allowing the Brunello Cucinelli team to focus on unique, ad-hoc cases. Counterfeiters typically operate in networks, a trend demonstrated by Navee’s technology, which reveals the most commonly used images by counterfeiters across various domains. In some cases, certain images were shared online more than 150 times.

“Time” and in this case, time lost, was arguably the brand’s biggest challenge when faced with the issue of counterfeiting. Navee’s AI solution automated detection and takedowns, significantly speeding up the process and ensuring that internal resources were not strained. In a span of a year alone, Brunello Cucinelli saw a 277% increase in counterfeit posts detected overall across different categories. This detection, when done manually, would require hours and hours on end and on top of that, with less precision.

Takedowns in numbers

To date, Navee’s AI-powered system has facilitated over 10,000 takedowns on behalf of Brunello Cucinelli, achieving a success rate of over 90% with takedown requests across multiple online platforms. The proactive takedown automation has significantly reduced the presence of unauthorized sellers, ensuring counterfeit goods are swiftly removed in domains across the globe and do not go unnoticed online.

In a year’s time, Brunello Cucinelli was also able to see a 506% jump in successful post takedowns, further proving the difference it makes when an AI-powered system is in place doing all the heavy lifting.

And it doesn’t stop there. Not only was there an increase in the volume of the detected counterfeit posts and successful takedowns, but as well as an increase in the domains unearthed that included counterfeits. There was a surge of 157% in terms of domains found, and this let the brand know just where exactly online these counterfeit posts were lurking.

Enhanced reporting

The comprehensive reports included relevant key statistics and data analyses, offering a clear view of the evolving landscape of counterfeiting across different markets. These tailored reports contained key relevant information, such as:

• Geographic breakdown: Insight into the country of origin of infringements, allowing Brunello Cucinelli to identify regions with higher incidences of counterfeit products and tailor its enforcement actions accordingly.

• Product category breakdown: An added layer of data analysis as to which specific product categories were seeing more counterfeits, providing Brunello Cucinelli a clearer perspective into which product categories counterfeiters were heavily focusing on.

• Takedown metrics: Detailed data on post-takedown requests and account takedown requests sent, providing a clear overview of the effectiveness and reach of the counterfeit removal efforts.

• Actionable insights: Reports included strategic data for IP protection, on a monthly, quarterly, and yearly basis, ensuring that Brunello Cucinelli could see the relevant numbers from various standpoints.

A shared dream of a better world: sustainability meets technology

Brunello Cucinelli and Navee share a vision for a better world— one where creativity, sustainability, and innovation thrive together, and proving together that a luxury brand can remain both authentic and innovation-centered.

The partnership between Brunello Cucinelli and Navee demonstrates how technology can help preserve and amplify a heritage brand’s commitment to craftsmanship and authenticity. Navee, with its shared mission, supports brands like Brunello Cucinelli that prioritize artisanship, creativity, and ethical values.

Through this collaboration, Navee was able to play a role in solidifying Brunello Cucinelli’s commitment to responsible luxury, seamlessly fitting into the brand’s ethos. 

As Brunello Cucinelli writes in his Letter on Artificial and Human Intelligence, "I like to think of artificial intelligence as a new handmaiden that accompanies human beings to inspire and renew their genius and creativity."

A final word: brand protection is a must in the luxury space

While creating authentic, on-brand experiences for customers is essential, in today’s digital landscape, protecting that authenticity online is just as critical. Brunello Cucinelli advises other luxury brands to prioritize safeguarding their online presence as a key to success.

For a brand that places a premium on quality and integrity, online brand dilution can severely harm its authenticity. Brand protection is not simply an operational task; it’s foundational to maintaining trust and exclusivity in the luxury market.

With intellectual property infringement growing in scope, luxury brands must adapt quickly to protect their reputation and ensure consumers can confidently identify genuine products. AI-powered solutions like Navee’s are essential for modern luxury brands, providing scalable and complete protection as counterfeiting and gray market activity become more sophisticated.

In a competitive, digital-first era, a robust and adaptable brand protection strategy is vital. By using Navee’s innovative AI-driven solutions, luxury brands can protect their legacy, boost customer loyalty, and maintain their position at the pinnacle of prestige and excellence.