Is AI in beauty the new frontier or slightly nerve-racking science fiction? We investigate the rising trend.
There was a time when the idea of a robot wielding a needle near your face would have felt absurd – if not terrifying. Same with the idea of a machine being able to tell you exactly which skincare products to use (and in what order) every single day depending on where you are travelling to.
Today though, it’s more than plausible – it’s happening. But the question is, would you try it?
How is AI influencing beauty?
Whether you’ve stopped to think about it yet or not, AI is no longer in the realm of science fiction in any aspect of our lives. From powering our apps and at-home smart devices to generative content providers such as ChatGPT (which is fast becoming a major challenger to search engines among Gen Z), artificial intelligence is here to stay. And it’s already causing real ripples within beauty.
According to Research and Markets, the global AI beauty market – which includes apps, softwares, and devices – is expected to grow to $8.1 billion by 2028, and it’s arguably the fastest growing area of technology worldwide. As CF’s beauty and wellness director I recently saw that boom in growth first hand, when I went to Vivatech – one of the largest technology conferences in the world. In a shift even from the year before, now almost every stand was showcasing some sort of AI or virtual reality innovation as its main ‘technological advancement’. In fact, artificial intelligence was the most discussed topic on every stage, not just in beauty, but conference wide.
“Technology touches almost all aspects of our consumers’ daily lives,” said Asmita Dubey, chief digital and marketing officer, L’Oréal Groupe at the conference. “Transformative technologies like AI, Gen AI, and Agentic AI are redefining consumer expectations and disrupting the beauty consumer journey, and so we remain laser-focused on delivering unparalleled consumer engagement with both creativity and technology.”
“What I’ve realised with 20 years of being in this job is that what really matters to people is more convenience, more performance and more elegance – and solving the big problems we want to solve today, that’s possible when we really focus on beauty powered by tech and AI,” continues Guive Balooch – L’Oreal’s global managing director for augmented beauty and open innovation.
Across the board in beauty, AI is now being used to (hopefully) improve customer experience, increase personalisation and facilitate speed without compromising quality – which is always good news for both our satisfaction as customers and a business’ bottom line. It is also leading to new models of business behaviour – one that favours innovation through collaboration, not just brand-to-brand competition, so that the very definition of what falls into ‘beauty’ has broadened.
“Beauty is expanding into new categories – into biotech, longevity, green science and diagnostics – and all of those innovations are in frontiers that lay outside conventional ‘beauty'”,” continues Balooch. That means the big beauty corporations are working with (rather than simply competing against) businesses in those spaces to bring the worlds of beauty, technology and AI increasingly together.
Sound exciting? From smart algorithms to robotic facial devices, here’s how artificial intelligence is rewriting the rules of beauty.
AI and personalisation
For a long time we have been turning to algorithms – yes, the ones that shape our social media feeds – to perfect our selfies, perhaps without even knowing it. That sort of ‘picture-based scanning’ is exactly how filters and smoothing tools (especially automated ones) now work. But what if AI could be used to stop you getting that spot you want to filter out in the first place? From hyper-personalised skincare regimens based on your specific skin goals to full face-scanning devices in clinics, AI is helping cut through that feeling of being overwhelmed – by facilitating a new era of skincare and tweakment personalisation.
Both offline and online, the opportunity to analyse your skin via a selfie is becoming increasingly commonplace, with AI programmes like Haut.AI working away in the background of many brand’s ‘skin diagnosis platforms’. Have a quick search online and you’ll be surprise how many of your favourite brands now offer this service, which work by digitally ‘scanning’ your picture to detect everything from wrinkles to signs of fatigue, helping provide not only diagnostics but the tailored product recommendations to match.
Not just a fun gimmick, this technology is getting more advanced. Take Spotscan+ by La Roche-Posay – a free skin analysis tool specifically for acne sufferers. It is powered by 6,000 scientific images of all phototypes with different levels of blemishes, to recommend what will actually work for you in terms of a personalised routine. (After all, with blemishes, the wrong advice can quickly make things worse).
AI and product recommendations
Ultimately, AI is being increasingly used (and thrives) when optimised to help us avoid what Balooch calls “auditioning your skincare”. That ‘trial and error approach’ to beauty has been so engrained as the ‘norm’ for generations, but it really just costs us time, money and discontent.
No wonder then that new, up-and-coming AI companies, including the beauty ‘decoding’ service Noli, are laser-focused on changing that. Using advanced AI tech and dermatologist-grade diagnostics (including skin scanning), the app provides you with a bespoke beauty profile called Beauty DNA to suggest the products that are best suited to your skin type and concerns. There’s even potential plans – through partnerships with Meta and other platforms – to sync the app to the weather forecast and pollution levels in your area. That will give you specific advice, day in, day out, on what you need to protect your skin wherever you happen to be in the world. (Here at CF, we think it sounds perfect for when trying to decide what to pack for your travels).
“We should all be more demanding of what we want – more facts, and advice, and science, and pathways to better decisions – and I do think that AI leads itself to the augmentation of the beauty advisor and the dermatologist – by giving us the new technologies and tools we need to tell people want will help them most,” continues Balooch.
Lancome’s Cell BioPrint goes one step further. Designed to make your at-counter experience increasingly data (and tech) driven – as the trend for in-person shopping continues – this clever technology can use a simple outer cheek swap to analyse your biomarkers for ageing, including how susceptible you are to pollution, dryness and stress. That empowers both you and the staff on beauty counters to find products that will target not just the signs of ageing in your skin, but the source of those issues, so you can look not just younger, but most importantly, healthier, for longer.
“Ninety per cent of skincare customers are unhappy with their skincare routines despite there being more brands and products available to them now than ever before,” reveals Balooch. “If we can’t help our customers know exactly what ingredients are right for them, then we aren’t able to reach such a big group of them and they are going to continue to be frustrated. What matters is starting with the beauty tension and then powering that solution with personalised tech for personalised solutions.”
AI in clinics
That example is being followed in the aesthetics world too, where aesthetic doctors have been able to revolutionise their consultations through AI as well. In forward-thinking clinics, no longer do experts need to hold up a literal mirror to your face in order to subjectively discuss your skin concerns, and before-and-after photographs can’t be ‘improved’ simply through tricks of the light or different angles. Instead, with face scanning technology, like VISIA, in just a few photographs, you can have your full face mapped and ‘scored’ for key skin concerns such as fine lines and dark spots, helping guide both your treatment and skincare choices.
Most exciting of all perhaps is the latest skin scanner on the block that takes things from 2D to 3D. Now gracing the clinics of leading doctors such as the Phi Clinic and Dr Sophie Shotter, Aura provides a lifelike 3D model of your face in one smart flash of the camera, making the invisible concerns deep in your skin visible. From there, your practitioner can demonstrate not only where your skin has ageing or has lost volume, but model what your future face could look like, to guide decisions such as where and how to administer toxin, dermal fillers or any other treatment.
What about the robots?
So, what about the rumours of robotic practitioners – which could see doctors and dermatologists stepping away from our faces all together?
Even that future is almost here too: Luum is a robotic arm that has already been trained to perform eyelash extension services, Umia Beauty has its AI-powered nail-painting robot, and ARTAS’ robotic hair transplant system uses a robotic arm to neatly nip out hair follicles. In the USA, you can even have a robot massage, courtesy of Aescape at Equinox gyms. Take that just another small step, and it’s not hard to imagine a robot facialist trained on thousands of dermal datasets performing a bespoke 30-minute treatment, or even one performing cosmetic procedures like injectables. (With the precision of a machine and no sick or holiday days required).
Whether there’s enough demand from people brave enough to try it is another thing, but the AI boom certainly paves the way to give practitioners better ‘co-pilot’ tools that they could use to enhance their skills, in the same way chefs use thermometers or surgeons use ultrasound devices to guide their hands.
Still scared to try? Here’s another thing, robotic beauty is closer to your current routine than you think. AI is influencing our at-home beauty devices more than ever before, and if you’ve ever picked up a ‘smart’ hairdryer that customises air flow and heat settings using real-time sensors or any other similar type of tech, you’ve already held an AI robot in your hand. Converted yet? L’Oreal’s AirLightPro, developed in partnership with tech company, Zuvi, is the latest innovation in the space, with highly accurate built-in sensors that leave hair 55 per cent shinier, and it fits seamlessly into your current beauty routine.
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