The Estée Lauder Companies signed a global strategic partnership with AI marketing platform Profound to track and optimize how its brands appear across generative AI platforms like ChatGPT and Gemini. The deal marks the first time a prestige beauty company has deployed Generative Engine Optimization at scale across its full brand portfolio.
The agreement gives Estée Lauder visibility into when its products are recommended to consumers on AI-powered search and answer platforms. It also identifies where opportunities exist to improve accuracy and prominence. As consumers shift product discovery toward these tools, the company is moving to shape how its brands surface in AI-generated responses rather than leaving it to chance.
How the technology works
Profound's platform monitors brand representation across generative AI channels, tracking what information large language models pull in and how they present it to users. Estée Lauder will use these insights to refine content across product description pages, blogs, YouTube channels, and other digital properties. The goal is to make product information, ingredients, claims, and benefits easier for AI models to interpret and surface correctly.
The partnership also feeds AI-driven representation data into the company's One Operating Ecosystem. This internal system helps Estée Lauder understand how consumers encounter its brands through emerging digital channels and how discovery behavior is changing.
What leadership is saying
"The way people discover beauty is being rewritten in real time, and we intend to shape that shift rather than reacting to it," said Aude Gandon, global chief digital and marketing officer at The Estée Lauder Companies. "This partnership gives every brand in our portfolio the ability to show up distinctly, consistently, and accurately wherever our consumers are asking for recommendations."
James Cadwallader, CEO and co-founder of Profound, said the company understands that tracking AI representation "is now essential to serving consumers wherever they choose to discover products and information."
The search landscape is shifting
Consumers increasingly use generative AI tools to compare products, seek personalized beauty advice, and make purchase decisions. For marketers, this changes the mechanics of organic visibility. Traditional SEO tactics built around keyword rankings and backlinks do not directly translate to how AI models select and present brand information in conversational responses.
Estée Lauder's approach signals a broader recognition that brands need to optimize for how machines interpret content, not just how humans read it. The company's portfolio includes more than 20 brands spanning skincare, makeup, fragrance, and hair care.
Why this matters for marketing professionals
This partnership is a concrete example of a major consumer brand treating AI platform visibility as a distinct channel requiring its own optimization strategy. For marketing teams, the implication is clear: generative AI is not a future consideration. It is already redirecting product discovery traffic, and brands that do not monitor how they appear in these environments risk losing ground to competitors who do. The skills required to manage this sit at the intersection of content strategy, technical SEO, and brand management - a combination most marketing departments have not yet formalized. For those building those capabilities, an AI Learning Path for Marketing Managers can provide a structured starting point, while senior leaders may benefit from an AI Learning Path for VP of Marketing focused on strategic deployment decisions.
Your membership also unlocks:
