Executive summary:
One of the biggest problems most people face when trying to find the right beauty products is that there are simply too many options out there. Finding products that truly work for a person’s individual needs involves a lot of trial and error, which often leaves them feeling frustrated and costs a great deal of money. Generative AI promises to change this by enabling consumers to find products that will help them achieve a flawless look with just a few clicks of a button.
- McKinsey estimates that generative AI could generate between $9 and 10 billion in the beauty industry alone.
- Numerous beauty brands have launched generative AI-powered tools that provide customers with personalised product suggestions that match their unique needs.
- “Beauty customers don’t need another brand telling them to buy, buy, buy – they need help,” says Sampo Parkkinen, chief executive of Revieve.
- Only about 30% of respondents felt comfortable with AI-generated styling suggestions, according to a survey by the National Hair & Beauty Federation.
- 100% of respondents in the NHBF survey consider human interaction to be a very important part of their beauty experiences.
- Some experts are concerned that the growing use of AI-generated images could have a detrimental impact on our body image and mental health.
While the use of generative AI within the beauty industry is still in relatively early stages, and there is still a great deal of scepticism regarding its effectiveness, we can expect more and more beauty brands and consumers to embrace the technology in the coming years. But even then, AI is unlikely to fully replace human stylists anytime soon, if ever. For many people, going to a beauty salon is about more than just vanity – it’s a wholesome experience with the human element at the centre of it.
Isn’t it fascinating how far we’ll go to look beautiful? Throughout history, humans have been utterly devoted to enhancing their appearance – willing to try almost anything in pursuit of that perfect look. Every day, countless people engage in elaborate beauty rituals, carefully applying foundation, mascara, and lipstick or spending hours at the salon transforming their natural hair colour into something completely different. And let’s not forget the more permanent solutions. Some people even decide to go under the knife in order to conform to societal beauty standards – though that’s a story in itself. For now, let’s focus on less invasive ways to change your appearance, the everyday transformations that help us feel more confident when we face the world.
You know what’s really tricky, though? With thousands of products flooding the market, zeroing in on the ones that actually work for you feels like searching for a needle in a haystack. Finding products that truly complement your skin, hair, or nails typically involves a lot of trial and error, which can be a very frustrating experience for the consumer – not to mention expensive. We’ve all got drawers full of barely-used products that promised the world but just didn’t deliver for our unique needs. To address this issue and provide their clients with a more personalised experience, a growing number of beauty brands are turning to generative AI technology. These smart systems are revolutionising how we discover and select beauty products, offering a level of personalisation that was unimaginable just a few years ago.
“Beauty customers don’t need another brand telling them to buy, buy, buy – they need help.”
Sampo Parkkinen, chief executive of Revieve
Beauty – it’s in the AI of the beholder
Finding the right beauty product for your unique needs has traditionally been a hit-and-miss affair. Could AI help take the guesswork out of the process?
Chances are, you’ve already interacted with AI in the beauty world, even if you didn’t realise it at the time. Remember that online quiz you took to find your perfect foundation shade or the ideal shampoo for your hair type? Yep, you guessed it – that was probably AI working behind the scenes to match you with suitable products. But while serviceable, those early chatbots were also pretty basic. They could only provide rigid answers within a limited framework, often leading to a frustratingly one-sided consumer experience. You’d ask about products for your specific condition and end up with the same generic list that everyone else got. In other words, not exactly the personalised experience we were looking for.
That’s the magic of generative AI: it’s trained on such massive consumer data it can respond to almost anything, including requests for deeply personalised product recommendations. Now, when you describe your concerns, the AI can consider multiple factors – your age, sensitivities, climate, lifestyle habits – and recommend products that actually make sense for your situation and not just generic suggestions that could apply to anyone. This results in a significantly improved consumer experience and fewer costly returns for brands.
“AI-powered chatbots will guide consumers through product choices based on everything from general product preferences to skin type and specific concerns, ensuring that each interaction is uniquely tailored to each consumer’s needs,” explains Alice Chang, founder and chief executive of beauty tech company Perfect Corp. This would go a long way towards meeting customer expectations, which have evolved significantly over the years. “Beauty customers don’t need another brand telling them to buy, buy, buy – they need help,” adds Sampo Parkkinen, chief executive of personalised digital experience platform Revieve. “Brands can win if they create an experience that really speaks to consumers as individuals, particularly in beauty, as these are highly personal products.”
Revolutionising the beauty industry
Of course, it’s not just shoppers who stand to benefit from generative AI. Beauty brands can use the technology to generate hyper-personalised marketing that resonates with the target audience more than generic messaging, leading to higher conversion rates. In fact, according to management consultancy Bain & Co, this shift toward hyper-personalised marketing could boost return on advertising spend by roughly 10-25%. In an industry where competition for consumer attention is fierce, that’s a massive difference. McKinsey estimates that generative AI could generate between US$9-$10 billion in the beauty industry alone.
Perhaps the most exciting development of all is actually happening behind the scenes in product development labs. Creating new beauty products has traditionally been a painstaking and drawn-out process. Researching ingredients, testing countless formula variations, ensuring stability and safety – all of this could take years, with no guarantee that consumers would even like the final product. Generative AI could streamline this process by automatically identifying the most promising ingredients for a new product, assessing the product’s potential benefits, and suggesting formula recipes.
While the stability and safety testing would still have to be conducted manually in the lab, the initial part of the process could be accelerated dramatically, enabling brands to bring innovations to market faster than ever before. It could even lead to surprising combinations – the kind a pair of human eyes might never spot. “Imagine generative AI models being able to look at an ingredients stack and auto-generate a set of ingredients,” says Kristi Weaver, McKinsey’s senior partner and beauty expert. “That might take a formulator days, weeks, months to do – and now brands can do it in a matter of hours.”
Where are we now?
While generative AI can certainly offer brands a unique competitive advantage, there are still several challenges that are hindering its widespread adoption. For starters, AI is only as good as the data it learns from. To be of any real use, generative AI models need massive sets of high-quality, diverse data covering everything from consumer preferences to evolving beauty trends, and this kind of comprehensive data isn’t always easy to come by. Without it, even the most sophisticated AI can end up making recommendations that feel generic or entirely off-base.
There’s also the financial aspect to consider. Developing AI models requires serious investment, particularly for brands ambitious enough to create their own proprietary systems rather than leveraging existing platforms. We’re talking significant outlays for technology infrastructure, specialised talent, and maintenance. For smaller beauty businesses or independent salons already operating on tight margins, these costs can quickly become prohibitive – enough to put them at a meaningful disadvantage against larger franchises.
The importance of human connection
Perhaps the most fascinating obstacle isn’t technical or financial – it’s human scepticism itself. A recent survey conducted by the National Hair & Beauty Federation revealed that only about 30% of respondents felt comfortable with AI-generated styling suggestions. A similar percentage were on the fence about the idea, while more than 40% were not comfortable with it at all, exhibiting a clear preference for human expertise instead. And when it came to colour matching for hair treatments, the respondents were even more hesitant to let AI make the decisions, with just 10% saying they would trust AI with the task.
So what’s behind this resistance? Well, the truth is that many people are invested in beauty therapy for reasons that go well beyond simple vanity. The same survey revealed that 100% of respondents consider human interaction to be a very important part of their beauty experiences. This figure shouldn’t be taken lightly. If you’re unsure, try getting 100% of people to agree on literally anything.
After all, a trip to the salon isn’t just about getting your roots touched up or your nails done. It’s often a form of self-care, a chance to chat with your stylist, and sometimes even a type of therapy. For a lot of people, it’s their ‘third place’ – a public location outwith home and work that they visit to experience a sense of community and belonging. So, does this mean AI has no place in beauty? Not at all – but it does suggest that the most successful implementations will be those that complement rather than replace the human element.
“The main idea for us is that when consumers can see how their skin will evolve, they can keep this motivation, because sometimes you kind of give up treatments, because we don’t see the effect.”
Anastasia Georgievskaya, co-founder and chief executive of Haut.AI
Visualising the future of beauty care
From personalised makeup suggestions to accelerated product development, generative AI has already found many useful applications in the beauty industry.
So, let’s take a closer look at how beauty brands are using generative AI to provide their customers with more engaging and more personalised experiences. For example, South Korea’s leading beauty company, Amorepacific, recently released a new virtual makeup solution called Wanna-Beauty AI, which uses generative AI and voice recognition technology to offer users personalised makeup suggestions and help them find their perfect look. After a user uploads a photo of their face and describes what they want to accomplish, the software analyses their skin tone, facial features, and proportions and recommends products that best match their needs and preferences. Then, using a proprietary stable diffusion model, it applies the virtual makeup on their face, allowing users to experiment freely with different looks until they find what works best for them.
SkinGPT, a generative AI-powered virtual try-on solution launched by AI company Haut.AI, goes one step further by enabling users to simulate the effects of skin care products and treatments on their skin over time. “The main idea for us is that when consumers can see how their skin will evolve, they can keep this motivation, because sometimes you kind of give up treatments, because we don’t see the effect,” explains Anastasia Georgievskaya, co-founder and chief executive of Haut.AI. “But knowing what the effects will be and in what time frame, like six weeks or six months, this can build positive reinforcement.” Alternatively, users can also visualise how their skin might change as a result of the ageing process or long-term exposure to environmental factors like the sun’s ultraviolet rays, allergens, or pollution, and how certain products could help minimise their impact.
Of course, there is no shortage of AI-powered solutions that focus on another important aspect of every beauty routine: hair. One such solution is HairAI, which uses microscopic hair analysis and advanced algorithms to analyse each user’s hair texture, type, and condition and recommend products compatible with their unique hair needs and goals. If they sign up for a subscription plan, users will also receive ongoing product recommendations, as well as monthly check-ins to track their hair journey. “A person’s hair is as unique to them as a fingerprint, and we’ve unlocked powerful, personalised insights with our AI platform,” says Candace Mitchell, founder and chief executive of Myavana, the beauty tech company that developed the product. “Hair is the longest record of your body’s health, providing as much as a decade of information about a person’s health and needs.”
How brands are using generative AI
As we mentioned earlier, the most exciting application of generative AI has probably been in the area of product development. So, how are brands leveraging this potential? Well, biotech firm Debut recently launched an AI-powered platform called BeautyORB, which promises to significantly speed up the discovery of new ingredients for beauty products. It works by screening up to 50 billion molecules to identify those that can activate certain cellular pathways within skin. “We don’t have to rely on an array of existing ingredients to test against specific claims, and we don’t have to go into the field to find rare ingredients in plants,” explains Joshua Briton, Debut’s founder and chief executive. “All this can be done at the click of a button, cutting out years from the innovation cycle and accessing ingredients that no one has seen before.”
Generative AI could also help beauty brands ensure their products are more environmentally friendly – a growing concern for consumers in recent years. L’Oréal, the world’s largest cosmetics company, joined forces with tech giant IBM to develop a custom AI foundation model that will facilitate the development of beauty products that are not only innovative but also made from renewable, sustainably sourced raw materials. In addition to formulating entirely new products, L’Oréal also plans to use the AI to reformulate its existing cosmetic formulas by examining the behaviours of renewable ingredients. “This partnership will extend the speed and scale of our innovation and reformulation pipeline, with products always reaching higher standards of inclusivity, sustainability, and personalisation,” says Stéphane Ortiz, head of innovation and product development at L’Oréal.
A growing number of beauty brands are also turning to generative AI to streamline their marketing efforts. The Estée Lauder Companies, for instance, partnered with Microsoft to form an AI innovation lab that will work on finding ways to use generative AI to help internal teams identify emerging product and ingredient trends and respond to them more quickly and accurately. Similarly, AI-powered platform Daash Intelligence uses a proprietary AI to analyse data from multiple sources and generate actionable insights that can help beauty brands better understand evolving market trends, compare their own performance against their competitors, and identify new market opportunities. “Beauty is a fiercely competitive retail category, and beauty and personal care brands need affordable data insights that help them understand market trends as they are occurring, not weeks or months later,” says Philip Smolin, co-founder and chief executive of Daash Intelligence.
“Young women are exposed to so much content. There’s a lot of identity building going on at that stage, and a lot of online content can be really disruptive.”
Eloise Skinner, an existential therapist
AI’s impact on body image
While generative AI brings numerous benefits to consumers and beauty brands alike, there are growing concerns about its impact on body image, especially among youth.
The use of AI within the beauty industry has understandably raised a few eyebrows among ethics watchdogs. But while much has been said about data privacy and security, one issue that doesn’t get nearly enough attention is the potential impact of AI-generated images on our body image and mental health – especially among young people. As avid users of social media, young people are constantly exposed to heavily edited images of famous people that promote unrealistic beauty standards, which can make them feel insecure about their own bodies and lower their self-esteem. According to Jonathan Haidt, a social psychologist and professor of ethical leadership at New York University, there is a strong correlation between heavy use of social media and rising levels of depression, anxiety and self-harm in young girls.
And as if comparing our bodies and faces with models and celebrities wasn’t demoralising enough, the arrival of generative AI has only served to skew societal body image standards even further. Now, anyone can drastically alter their appearance and create an idealised version of themselves with just a click of a button. Go to your camera app right now – the odds are high it has AI-powered filters that automatically slim your jawline, make your eyes look brighter, and your skin more smooth. That’s a fundamentally unhealthy thing for a child – let alone an adult – to have round-the-clock access to.
While AI-generated images were initially relatively easy to spot, the technology has advanced to a point where it can now produce images so realistic that most people won’t be able to tell the difference. The growing use of AI-generated images in advertising and marketing materials is only compounding the problem. According to research conducted by The Bulimia Project, a website dedicated to providing information about eating disorders, when tasked with generating an image of an ‘ideal body’, popular image generators like Stable Diffusion, Midjourney, and DALL-E 2 produced an unrealistic body type 40% of the time.
Unaware that the ‘perfect’ bodies and faces they are looking at online aren’t real, many people will develop a warped body image that their own bodies will never be able to match. In some cases, this may even lead to issues like extreme body dysmorphia, eating disorders, anxiety, and depression. Young women are particularly vulnerable in this regard. “Young women are exposed to so much content,” explains existential therapist Eloise Skinner. “You’re trying to figure out, ‘who actually am I?’ And how should I present myself to the world? There’s a lot of identity building going on at that stage, and a lot of online content can be really disruptive. You feel like, ‘I actually have no idea what I’m meant to aspire to, or how I can live up to these ideals.’”
Learnings
So, what’s the big takeaway here? There’s no denying that AI is solving some genuine headaches in the beauty world. Who hasn’t wasted money on products that didn’t work? And for brands, cutting product development time from years to weeks or months is nothing short of revolutionary. Yet amid all this innovation, something interesting has emerged: people still crave human connection in their beauty experiences. That salon visit isn’t just about getting a new hairstyle; it’s about the conversation, the personal attention, and the relationship built over time. The value placed on human interaction in beauty services reveals an important truth: technology enhances beauty experiences most effectively when it supports, rather than replaces, the human element.
Perhaps the most concerning aspect of the beauty industry’s AI-powered revolution is its potential to further distort our already troubled relationship with body image. When AI can generate “perfect” bodies that don’t exist in nature – and when those images become indistinguishable from reality – we risk creating a beauty standard that’s literally impossible to achieve. This is especially damaging for young people forming their identities in a digital landscape where the boundary between reality and fantasy is becoming increasingly blurred. That doesn’t mean that AI should be banned from the beauty industry – but perhaps regulators should take a closer look at its scope. At the end of the day, like any other technology, AI is just a tool; it’s how we use it that’s going to determine whether it’s a force for good or another source of trouble.
