AI Search Displaces Legacy Giants in Luggage Market
When consumers ask AI which suitcase to buy, the industry’s $3.6 billion giant, Samsonite, is no longer the default choice. Instead, the 2015-founded direct-to-consumer brand Away captures 15% of AI citation share, outpacing the global market leader by three percentage points across major search engines.
The 2026 Luggage AI Visibility Index reveals a significant disconnect between traditional revenue dominance and digital relevance. While Samsonite maintains a massive physical footprint through its portfolio of Tumi and American Tourister, it struggles to penetrate the logic of AI models like ChatGPT and Claude. The disparity highlights a shift in consumer discovery, where brand authority is increasingly built in online reviews, travel media, and digital packing threads rather than retail presence at airport terminals.
According to Ronn Torossian, founder of the PR firm 5W, the gap stems from how these platforms ingest data. Newer brands like Monos, Béis, July, and Calpak have optimized their digital presence to dominate the 'best carry-on' query—the primary gateway for category discovery. Meanwhile, legacy players rely on scale that search engines fail to prioritize, effectively leaving them invisible in the AI-driven path to purchase.
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