AI in Beauty: The Era of Quiet, Effective Use Has Begun

Beauty's AI era is over.

Well, not quite. But the reckoning is real – and the results are messier than anyone expected.

AI in beauty only wins where it removes friction.
It doesn't win, where it diagnoses skin.
Or where it promises personalization.
Or where it replaces the mind of the artist.

– L'Oréal layered ModiFace on top of 36 brands and a billion site visitors. And? Conversion triples. 100 million try-on sessions in 2023.
– Perfect Corp. built the same technology – across 842 brand clients and with similar conversion lifts – but just received a take-private bid at $1.95 a share. Barely above cash.

Same technology. Different bet.
One company built AI on top of everything. The other built everything on AI.

The personalization story is more complicated:
– Prose works – $165 million revenue, profitable, DTC only – because the AI changes the product you receive. Not the recommendation.
– Function of Beauty raised $150 million, launched at Target but three CEOs in four years tends to mean the model didn't work as planned.

Formulation AI is where we can see that what's actually working is rather happening invisibly:

– L'Oréal-NVIDIA Alchemi runs discovery 100x faster.
– Shiseido VOYAGER trained on 500,000-plus data points.
– Unilever's robots generated 200-plus patents in two years.

None of these brands lead with the AI claim.

And finally, there's the bias problem:
A July 2025 study found AI melanoma sensitivity at 100% on Fitzpatrick I–II skin. It collapsed to 29–43% on Fitzpatrick III–VI. The beauty industry has known about this bias since 2018.
Meaning: any brand claiming its AI "works equally across all skin tones" without independent validation is sitting on unpriced regulatory exposure.

Safe to say: AI in beauty is a layer, not a category and the era of claiming AI is most likely over. But the era of using it – quietly, effectively, without putting it on the label – is rather just beginning.

Thoughts? Drop them below! 💭

#AI in Beauty #Beauty Tech #Personalized Skincare #AI Innovation #Beauty Industry Trends