Member

What if robots ran the beauty industry?

Artificial intelligence is poised to transform the beauty industry, influencing product personalisation, consumer engagement and supply chain efficiencies. What will this mean for brands?
Artificial Intelligence Image may contain Charlotte Di Calypso Sonny Zhou Accessories Bag Handbag Adult Person Purse...
Photo: Pascal Le Segretain/Getty Images

Welcome to Beauty Run by Robots, a Vogue Business mini-series exploring the role and effects artificial intelligence (AI) will have on the beauty industry.

The robots are coming for your beauty routine. Are you ready?

Tech advancements have made it not only possible, but practically guaranteed, that artificial intelligence-generated models will reshape beauty’s future, with brands and investors rushing to cash in on the opportunity. This means that, some time in the future, everything from supply chain management and ingredient sourcing, to product development and recommendations could be influenced by AI.

According to global management consulting firm McKinsey, AI could generate $450 billion in value globally, with $9 billion to $10 billion earmarked for the beauty sector alone. Investors are also teeing up the potential. Last year, Ulta Beauty’s Digital Innovation Fund invested $5.9 million in Myavana, whose AI-driven haircare system is already deployed by Procter & Gamble, Unilever and Nordstrom. Bold Hue, the tech company behind the TikTok-viral personalised foundation device, secured $3.4 million in an oversubscribed seed round led by Lucas Venture Group. Treatment platform Fresha invested in Yuv, an AI-powered hair colour technology company, to optimise inventory management and service personalisation. Daash Intelligence, a predictive commerce insights platform, recently raised $5.5 million in a Bullpen Capital-led seed round; the firm’s AI-powered model helps brands better predict demand.

L’Oréal’s Cell BioPrint Tool was revealed at the 2025 CES Tech showcase.

Photo: Courtesy of L’Oréal

At January’s Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas — once reserved for gadgets and tech geeks — beauty-tech innovation took centre stage, much of it reliant on AI. Korean cosmetics company Amorepacific introduced Wanna-Beauty AI, a voice-activated chatbot for personalised virtual try-ons. Samsung, meanwhile, debuted its Micro-LED Beauty Mirror, which analyses skin, weather conditions and daily events to recommend tailored skincare and makeup routines. Other highlights included beauty conglomerate L’Oréal’s Cell Bioprint tool and mood-sensitive mirror, and French health tech company Withings’s Omnia smart mirror for metabolic and heart health tracking.

“We’re at a radical inflexion point where real-time, hyper-personalised data and AI models are driving innovation across production, supply chains and retail,” says beauty futurist Dr Alex Box, founder of tech firm V-Metics. She predicts AI will enhance — rather than replace — human interaction, offering a richer experience for consumers who now have higher expectations from AI technology and integrations.

Strategic foresight agency The Future Laboratory’s lead beauty, health and wellness analyst Olivia Houghton agrees. “Consumers are increasingly trusting and buying into beauty brands that experiment with AI, in particular, where the technology enhances personalisation and efficient product development.” Beauty brands should ready themselves for its impact.

Smarter service

Beauty consumers want bespoke service. “Today, there’s too much noise for consumers,” says Sampo Parkkinen, CEO of Revieve, a personalised digital experience platform. “Beauty customers don’t need another brand telling them to buy, buy, buy — they need help. Brands can win if they create an experience that really speaks to consumers as individuals, particularly in beauty as these are highly personal products.”

AI model demonstrating the future of AI skin analysis.

Photo: Adobe Stock

This development means brands must move beyond generic chatbots if they want to better engage with their customers whose expectations for sophisticated technology tools are now at an all-time high. Experts say the shift to advanced voice commerce, facial analysis and AI-powered virtual advisors is the next step in AI innovation

Dr Simon Ourian, co-founder of Simon Ourian MD and celebrity cosmetic dermatology doctor, has already integrated AI into a virtual consultation platform, using an avatar (incorporating his voice and image) trained on millions of data sets to assess skin parameters like hydration, wrinkles and texture before issuing a tailored product routine. He calls it a “game-changer” for global clients.

Houghton says AI will help brands and platforms collect and analyse vast amounts of user data, enabling them to deliver unique, individualised experiences and improve service offerings. The benefits extend to the bottom line. Per Revieve’s data, beauty brand No7’s AI skincare advisor with location-based personalisation saw a 3.6x increase in conversion rates and a 48 per cent rise in average order value (AOV). Retailers also stand to benefit. JCPenney’s in-store AI beauty advisor drove a 23 per cent higher AOV in Q1 2024, while its AI makeup artist boosted conversions by 108 per cent, according to Revieve.

Haut.AI CEO Anastasia Georgievskaya says AI-powered beauty advisors using technology like the company’s SkinGPT algorithm (a tool adopted by companies like Clarins, Ulta and Beiersdorf that factors in environmental conditions like pollution to simulate skin ageing and suggest preventative skincare online) to understand browser history, facial scans and product knowledge will deliver personalised shopping experiences. “AI will allow for better, more dynamic client selling,” she adds.

A preview of Haut AI's SkinGPT Algorithm assessing skin ageing.

Photo: Courtesy of Haut.AI

Implementing AI-generated services presents significant opportunities for brands and retailers, but it also highlights hurdles in operational, technological and strategic alignments. Georgievskaya says a robust infrastructure must be in place, starting with the ability to provide a seamless online-to-offline experience. Basic tech needs will have to be met. “Do all stores even have strong wifi connections? The reality is, they often don’t. Also, are there enough power outlets and charging stations for robot advisors to roam around in-store?” she asks.

Onboarding AI integrations will also require a bridging of data silos between e-commerce platforms and physical stores. “At the moment, companies don’t invest the time or energy in data collection to leverage AI,” adds Georgievskaya. Brands and retailers struggle with unifying customer data collected online — such as browsing habits and purchase history — with in-store interactions and experiences, creating a disjointed personalised experience for customers that undermines an AI-driven experience.

Data and privacy laws (GDPR and CCPA) will also be critical to uphold. For Parkkinen, “Consumers will increasingly question where their data is being stored, if it is a fair algorithm and what happens to my privacy when using the systems. It is paramount that brands and retailers have strict and visible guidelines in place for customer assurance and only work with platforms that explicitly detail their compliance with the US and the EU AI Act.”

Unlocked marketing capabilities

Hyper-personalisation will revolutionise marketing, with beauty poised to benefit. “AI will redefine experiential product discovery,” says Kristi Weaver, McKinsey’s senior partner and beauty expert. With generative AI, brands can analyse consumer data, create micro-segments and craft personalised marketing campaigns. According to McKinsey’s ‘How Beauty Players Can Scale Gen AI in 2025’ report, such strategies could boost conversion rates by 40 per cent. “The kind of hyper-personalised marketing from creative content generation to targeted marketing ads will change the industry and AI-led marketing strategies,” she adds.

Management consultancy Bain & Co says that this hyper-personalised marketing shift could equate to companies seeing a 10 to 25 per cent increase in return on advertising spend. Brands can also leverage AI to enter new markets and capitalise on internal product data and market research to test variations of text or image and see what best resonates with consumer sentiment. But this type of maneuvering also raises privacy concerns. To mitigate risk, brands will need to communicate what data is being collected and how it will be used and stipulate opt-in/opt-out messaging for personalisation rather than default opt-ins, says Parkkinen.

Weaver warns brands not to get lost in the algorithm and erode the human connection. “[Brands need to] make sure that they’re still very responsible with AI and that there’s still a human interaction part — that will be incredibly important,” she says.

As for influencer marketing, Georgievskaya says AI-generated influencers pulling together product recommendations and SEO-optimised content is a future marketing possibility as there are shared advantages between human influencers and digitalised influencers that have high and trusted consumer engagement rates. Would this derail the billion-dollar influencer marketing economy? Weaver and Georgievskaya agree it will be a while before AI influencers infiltrate the marketing mainstream. “Authenticity and human connection still outweigh AI’s capabilities,” adds Georgievskaya. Still, artificial intelligence will shake up influencer marketing as the industry currently knows it.

AI can also equip brands with valuable insights into product performance, steering marketing strategies in the long run. “Many brands are selling via retailers and then lack first-party data. AI will help bring product and consumer behaviour and knowledge back to brands where they can summarise the data and strengthen their marketing and operational flow,” says Georgievskaya.

Faster, smarter operations

Generative AI models can speed up a brand’s product development process once trained on ingredients, regulations, raw material usage, product processes and internal data.

“Imagine generative AI models being able to look at an ingredients stack and auto-generate a set of ingredients. That might take a formulator days, weeks, months to do — and now brands can do it in a matter of hours,” says Weaver.

The shift from manual product formula research to automated AI systems can also help brands alter formulas and product development processes based on customer feedback. Consumer tech company Oddity recently extended its AI capabilities to help identify better formulations and new ingredients for its brands, including Il Makiage and Spoiled Child.

Beauty brand Il Makiage uses AI tool ‘Powermatch’ to pair users with product online.

Photo: Courtesy of Oddity Labs

Biotech firm Debut will launch its BeautyORB (an AI-powered innovation engine) next week. “[The device] screens a potentially limitless quantity of ingredients, upward of 50 billion, to discover the next big ingredient at incredible speed and effectiveness — what would take years using traditional approaches can be done in a matter of 10 months or so computationally,” says Debut founder and CEO Joshua Britton. “This allows us to find and create novel ingredients in record time thanks to computational compound prediction, cutting out many years from ingredient innovation cycles and enabling us to access ingredients no one has ever seen before.”

However, given that generative AI’s use in ingredients and formulation is still in its infancy, exclusivity (costs included) will hinder brand adoption. Until more models like Debut and Oddity go mainstream, brands should be aware of the cost challenges.

Transparency potential

Artificial intelligence can increase transparency across brands’ supply chains and sourcing operations. Lindsay Dahl, chief impact officer at vitamin brand Ritual, says the company has built a traceability programme using AI in partnership with the AI platform, PlanetFWD. The tool measures product-level carbon footprints in addition to a detailed view of the brand’s Scope emissions from 1 to 3. “These tools help us get a more accurate picture of where our carbon hotspots exist, yet the foundation for this carbon mapping still comes from one-to-one conversations we have with suppliers,” explains Dahl. L’Oréal has partnered with IBM’s generative AI technology to help create more eco-friendly products based on bio-sourced materials in a push to meet its sourcing sustainability target by 2030.

Conglomerate Coty’s chief global supply chain officer Graeme Carter maps out a similar AI integration to improve transportation routes and raw materials sourcing, as well as packaging and forecast waste. The group also uses predictive insights from its Supply Biome model to constantly monitor supply chain performance and adapt to changes, all while improving efficiency.

However, experts warn AI is not a straightforward solution for sustainability efforts, as the tech is only as good as its data inputs. “The reality is that many wellness and beauty brands know very little about their supply chains, the critical information needed to input into AI tools,” Dahl says. The industry also can’t ignore that AI relies on a copious amount of water and energy to run while the data centres supporting it can also create heavy metal waste, polluting the environment and adding public health risks for nearby communities, she adds. Carter agrees: “AI has a carbon footprint, and we need to ensure the benefits outweigh the impacts on the planet.”

Ultimately, beauty is up against significant investments before the robots fully take over. Inconsistency in service and AI interactions could turn customers off. Revieve estimates that its technology costs brands between $500,000 and $5 million depending on the scope of the project. “Before pushing forward with AI technology and executing the vision, [brands and retailers] need to closely weigh up the practical execution beyond proof of concept or pilots,” says Haut.AI’s Georgievskaya.

Still, Weaver says the industry is most poised to take advantage of AI compared to other industries like food and fashion. “But, we think it will never replace human interaction,” she says. “You always need a human as a safeguard at the end: formula, packaging, in-store interaction, codes and privacy — AI will just be a helping hand.”

Comments, questions or feedback? Email us at feedback@voguebusiness.com.