AI news ·
Beauty brands embed AI across discovery, production, and personalization
L'Oréal partners with OpenAI to embed generative AI across discovery and research, while Unilever scales digital twins with Accenture to cut waste by 20% and boost capacity by 10%.
L'Oréal has partnered with OpenAI to embed generative AI across consumer discovery, scientific research, and marketing, while Unilever is scaling its use of digital twins with Accenture to cut waste and boost production capacity across its manufacturing network. These moves signal that AI investment in beauty has shifted from isolated pilots to structural, enterprise-wide deployments that directly affect how products are developed, sold, and personalized.
L'Oréal and OpenAI: From production to discovery
The partnership between L'Oréal and the ChatGPT creator rests on two pillars: AI-powered consumer interactions and AI-powered business operations targeting research, science, and marketing. On the consumer side, Maybelline New York will offer Makeup Virtual Try-On via ChatGPT, powered by L'Oréal's ModiFace technology, to increase product discovery through AI-driven conversations. Lancôme and Kérastase will amplify product discovery within ChatGPT in the US with "enhanced signals."
SkinCeuticals, CeraVe, and Garnier will join OpenAI's pilot for AI-native advertising, designed to meet consumers at the point of intent and commerce. On the research and science side, L'Oréal is using GPT-Rosalind, OpenAI's life sciences reasoning model, to map the skin microbiome. The goal is to accelerate skin care development, with an initial focus on La Roche-Posay.
On the marketing front, the company is expanding its use of generative AI through its in-house content platform, CreAItech. "At L'Oréal, we believe we can be more demanding of AI to augment our beauty consumers, our metiers such as marketing and research, and our employees," said Asmita Dubey, chief digital and marketing officer at L'Oréal. "Our collaboration with OpenAI structurally supports this ambition to bring new solutions within the beauty vertical."
Unilever & Accenture: Fine-tuning production
Unilever's partnership with Accenture will scale its use of AI-powered "digital twins" - virtual replicas of physical assets that use real-time data to reflect how equipment is operating - with more than 40 new twins expected over the next 18 months. The packaged goods company reports that digital twins have already cut waste by 20% and boosted capacity by 10% at its Raeford factory in North Carolina.
At the Raeford plant, which produces Dove, Degree, and Axe, the digital twin predicted 95% of process flow restrictions in deodorant stick manufacturing. That prediction led directly to the 20% waste reduction and 10% capacity uplift. "Having invested early in AI, Unilever is setting the standard for pairing advanced tools with smart process design and disciplined execution on the shop floor," said Nicole van Det, CEO of Accenture the Netherlands and Nordics.
The technology accelerates issue identification and scenario simulation, helping manufacturing teams make faster decisions throughout the production cycle. Unilever said the digital twins reduce waste by accurately predicting quality defects before they occur.
Amorepacific's face mapping and ELC's Scent Scanner
Beyond the structural scale of L'Oréal and Unilever's AI deployments, other beauty players are applying AI in narrower, consumer-facing scopes. Amorepacific has launched an AI-powered Facial Aging Map that visualizes wrinkle and hyperpigmentation changes. The research uses a "Standardized-Face Composite Overlay" technique to identify and map the spatial characteristics of facial features and aging across different age groups.
The analysis revealed that wrinkles and hyperpigmentation follow distinct paths across the face. Wrinkles first appear around the eye area and move to more dynamic zones, while hyperpigmentation starts on the cheeks and under-eye areas before spreading. The data opens potential doors for personalized skin care informed by region-based aging characteristics.
Separately, The Estée Lauder Companies and Jo Malone London have launched Scent Scanner, an AI-powered fragrance discovery experience on Pinterest that analyzes users' aesthetic preferences - imagery, color palettes, textures, destinations, and rituals - to suggest Jo Malone London scents. "For years, personalization in beauty meant asking people what they wanted. The bigger opportunity is to understand what they already love - and to meet them where their taste already lives," said Aude Gandon, chief digital and marketing officer at ELC.
"With Scent Scanner, we can build someone a fragrance pairing drawn from what already inspires them, so the Jo Malone London scents they discover feel chosen for them - and unmistakably their own," said Jo Dancey, global brand president, Jo Malone London and Lifestyle Fragrance at ELC. The experience is available in the US and France.
Why this matters for marketing leaders
These developments show that AI in beauty is no longer confined to backend automation or narrow chatbot experiments. Marketing leaders now have to contend with AI that touches the full value chain: from AI-native advertising units that intercept purchase intent, to generative content platforms like CreAItech that reshape how campaigns are built, to personalization engines that read aesthetic taste rather than asking for stated preferences. For CMOs, the shift demands a fluency in AI that spans both AI for Marketing strategy and the operational realities of how these tools integrate with existing tech stacks. The brands moving fastest are not just adopting AI - they are reorganizing how discovery, commerce, and production connect around it.