NPCs and Analogs: Consumer Bifurcation

The 2025 consumer reads The Paris Review and shops on Shein

I’ve seen countless “ins and outs of 2025” and “2025 trend predictions” type-articles since late December. Some predictions have more meat than others, and of these meatier predictions I’ve noticed a salient pattern:

The consumer market is bifurcating into analog/luxury offerings vs. AI-driven, bargain offerings, with little in-between.

In other words, there will be a divide in the consumer landscape clean down the middle between human-made, more analog, luxury, experience-driven offerings, and bargain, AI-driven, tech-enabled offerings. The middle ground between the two will be nearly nonexistent as time goes on.

For the sake of this article, I’m going to call the two categories Analog/Luxury and AI/NPC. This is not about luxury in the Gucci-Prada-Miu Miu sense, but luxury in the sense of quality, attention to detail, and uniqueness. Conversely, NPC offerings conjure the idea of sameness, cookie-cutter, and pedestrian offerings.

NPC.

I predict that consumers will shift between the bifurcation in offerings depending on the consumable category. I’ve already seen this sort of behavior in myself and my peers. In other words, you're not strictly an Analog/Luxury consumer or strictly an NPC/AI one — you can go between the two depending on how much is in your checking account, the personality you adopt when you date someone new, or (most commonly) depending on consumable category. Categories include fashion, food, hospitality, media, entertainment, wellness, fitness, etc. For example, someone could be Analog/Luxury in Fashion but NPC/AI in Food. They shop at curated vintage boutiques and support emerging designers, but they get all their meals delivered from CookUnity. Their opposite would prefer to shop for clothes on Shein or Temu but go to the farmer’s market and local grocery and specialty stores for food.

Obviously, the above framework reduces people’s ever-complicated predilections, wants, and needs. The idea of a spectrum of Analog/Luxury and AI/NPC with little in-between, though, is undoubtedly imminent.

Let’s look at some predictions divided by consumable category. Sources are at the end.

ANALOG/LUXURY:

• Shift from consumer spending on physical goods —> experiences. This is a big one and people have been saying this for the past few years. Essentially, access to culture as a status symbol as opposed to owning goods / conspicuous consumption. Luxury goods have become too accessible, but niche, luxury experiences have not and retain some mystique.

• Traditional luxury brands directing spend into experiences for customers rather than producing and marketing more goods. For brands, this ameliorates both the bottom line and brand awareness as it allows more consumers to participate in the brand at a lower price point. For consumers, it allows them to participate in the brand in an experiential way that may feel more satisfying than buying an item.

  • Blurred lines between food, art, and luxury:

    • Prada is rumored to be taking over the Lure Fishbar space on Prince Street in Soho, after successful ventures into the hospitality space in London (Prada Caffe) and Milan (Bar Luce at Fondazione, Pasticceria Marchesi). To me this also makes sense amidst the fashion-world pontification that Miuccia is focusing her fashion-intellect on Miu Miu while allowing Raf to use his powers to turn Prada into true luxury for the masses (if it wasn’t already). Giorgio Armani opened a restaurant on Madison Ave in the same vein of his Paris cafe, opened in 1998 so clients could relax and eat after shopping. IYKYK- Armani is actually one of the first purveyors of American luxury. Finally, Alaia opened a bakery-cafe in London with baked goods from Violet Cakes (an odd collab if you know anything about either thing).

    • Art integrations that aren’t the tacky collabs of the 2010s (Murakami x LV for example) - for example, Ignacio Monreal’s collaboration with Gucci. Further, luxury brands being present at art fairs like Art Basel and design fairs like Design Miami and Salone.

      “Art Basel has long understood the power and allure of the lifestyle elements of the art world,” echoes Naomi Rea, Artnet News’s acting editor-in-chief. “Access to this world is aspirational and offering a piece of it at a more affordable price point expands the customer base significantly. Now, the casual visitors over the weekend (as opposed to the VIP days) can say they bought something at Art Basel and can signal their membership in the art tribe.”

    • Firms like AnanasAnanas and Laila Gohar have turned food into an art medium, and luxury brands are hiring them for dinners, parties, activations, and even Fashion Week shows. Food is art, art is luxury, luxury is food that is art.

      

      Ananas Ananas for Cartier

      

      Laila Gohar for Hermes

    • All of the above imbue the luxury brand with cultural capital and allow it to grant cultural access to consumers who seek something beyond (or simply cannot access) a $3000 handbag - lunch at the brand restaurant or appreciating an artist’s work at a store. Further, presence in the high art and design worlds could prove key in improving the global luxury downturn by appealing to HNW clients as well as everyday folks who appreciate a lower cost of entry via pop-up shops.

    • Intersection of fashion and hospitality: There’s Armani Hotels, Palazzo Versace, the Vermelho Hotel (Louboutin), Karl Lagerfeld Macau, and the Venice Venice (Golden Goose)… plus more on the horizon.

    • Part of this is also that luxury has become too accessible - in fact, if everyone can access it, it’s not luxury. Brands are attempting to associate themselves with the next stratosphere of culture to retain a “luxury” identity.