The RealReal Expands AI Push as Luxury Buyers Spend More

The RealReal’s latest earnings message is less about a single quarter’s sales tally and more about how the luxury reseller thinks artificial intelligence can rewire the work behind every listing, from deciding which sellers to pursue to getting more items authenticated, described and priced fast enough to meet demand.

On the Q&A portion of the earnings call, CEO and President Rati Levesque framed the company’s AI roadmap as a multiyear advantage, not a one-off feature release. “There’s so much opportunity over the next couple of years,” she said, pointing to two initiatives in particular: SmartSales, which helps frontline “luxury managers” identify which clients are most likely to consign, and Athena, which aims to compress the time from intake to live listing while improving accuracy.

That AI push connects directly to how The RealReal is trying to shape supply and, by extension, what it sells, where it sources it, and who’s buying it. Levesque repeatedly emphasized a shift toward higher-value consignors and higher-ticket categories that tend to be stickier with both sellers and buyers.

When an analyst pressed for detail on what drives supply growth, she described a coordinated “growth playbook” that brings marketing, sales and retail together, with sharper targeting than in prior years. The company, she said, has “gotten much better at targeting that mid to high-value seller.”

Physical retail plays a specific role in that strategy: not just customer acquisition, but quality. Levesque said roughly a quarter of new consignors are coming through retail locations — and that the mix coming through stores is meaningfully higher value because those customers are often consigning jewelry, watches and handbags with the help of in-store experts like gemologists and watchmakers. In her words, the average selling price for items sourced through retail can be “5 times to 7 times higher” on a per-unit basis.

On the demand side, she argued that buyers are holding up better than many might expect, especially in premium categories. One indicator she highlighted: buyers spending $5,000 or more was up 20% year over year. Levesque tied that resilience to The RealReal’s positioning “at the intersection of luxury and value,” and to the company’s effort to educate shoppers about what an item costs new versus what it costs on the resale market.

Against that operational and go-to-market backdrop, the company’s Q4 and full-year results showed continued growth and improving profitability. In the fourth quarter of 2025, gross merchandise value rose 22% year over year and revenue increased 18%, with adjusted EBITDA of $22 million for the quarter. For the full year 2025, GMV increased 16% to $2.13 billion and revenue rose 15% to $693 million, as the company delivered positive adjusted EBITDA in every quarter of the year for the first time, according to its earnings release.

Levesque framed those results as proof points for a broader transformation and a setup for 2026 priorities that include scaling AI deeper into operations and sharpening the supply engine.

“As we enter 2026, we are poised to build on the momentum and continue to deliver on our mission to be the definitive authority in luxury resale,” she said.