This article is part of the Future of AI, a collection of articles that investigates how artificial intelligence will impact the fashion and beauty industries in the years to come.
The beauty sector is the corner of luxury that’s been the fastest to adopt AI, and as the technology swiftly evolves, beauty conglomerates are racing to grab a piece of the AI pie. In recent months, L’Oréal and AI chipmaker Nvidia have expanded their AI partnership for beauty R&D, Estée Lauder Companies (ELC) tapped AI startup Rezolve AI to better develop its brands websites for search and discovery across 70 markets in EMEA, and LVMH announced it would deepen its partnership with Google for its fashion and beauty businesses, which includes branded AI chatbot MaIA.
Beauty AI firms are winning over bands big and small, promising growth that may previously have been out of reach. Here are four emerging AI companies — backed by beauty giants — shaping the future of beauty.
Debut
Founder(s): Joshua Britton
Funding to date: $80 million
Key investors: L’Oréal’s venture fund Bold, Material Impact, Fine Structure Ventures, and GS Futures
AI in the beauty space is all about speed. At Debut, Joshua Britton has built a platform that combines AI with genomics (the study of gene functions and interactions), biotechnology, and compresses years of R&D into months, enabling the creation of entirely new, high-performance ingredients without relying entirely on a chemist. The technology collects formulas and data to make new ingredients, putting it to test based on studies it has gathered from brands and labs.
“By accelerating millions of years of evolution, we can design targeted ingredients with clinically validated performance in emerging areas of skin science,” says Britton, founder and CEO of Debut, which launched in 2019 with a focus on biotech within beauty. The brand works with the L’Oréal portfolio and Image Skincare, as well as Formula Fig, an aesthetic treatment clinic and retailer.
In January, the company launched Dermceutical EDL, a topical bioactive ingredient that delivers a professional-grade skin tightening similar to Botox. EDL works by activating the cellular pathways targeted by clinical procedures, and stimulates dermal fibroblasts to boost elastin, which achieves clinically proven results in skin tightness and firmness.
Britton predicts that AI in beauty will shift to be performance-driven with innovations in biotechnology, where the line between beauty, pharmaceuticals, and nutrition will blur increasingly because of the acceleration of AI. “The current set of active ingredients will be replaced by molecules with yet-to-be-imagined functionalities,” he says. “Their names may be unfamiliar today, but their outstanding scientific performance and beauty-forward claims will quickly establish their ascendancy, all validated by clinical testing.”
Looking ahead, Britton believes his company will venture into related industries, including food, beverage, and performance nutrition. “In this industrial revolution, we’re not turning to nature to discover a new plant, nor waiting for a chemist to invent something,” he says.
Haut.AI
Founder(s): Anastasia Georgievskaya and Konstantin Kiselev
Funding to date: $2.8 million
Key investors: Ulta Beauty’s venture capital firm LongeVC, Grupo Boticário, and Prisma Ventures
Haut.AI co-founder Anastasia Georgievskaya is a scientist by training with a degree in biophysics. She began her career working in drug discovery, before moving into cosmetic manufacturing and testing. “It was very revealing while analyzing all of these clinical studies that skincare products work, but for some reason, consumers think that they don’t,” says Georgievskaya. “The reason is because we’re not all experiencing the same effect of the product.”
Haut.AI’s technology analyzes skin health and recommends products based on the analysis. Through launching Haut.AI, Georgievskaya’s mission has been to have personalized skincare routines at the fingertips of consumers through their mobiles. The platform has also been venturing into hair analysis, a category expansion for the AI tool.
