L’Oreal: Making AI worthwhile

L’Oreal, a cosmetics and beauty company, has extended its long-term partnership to IBM in order to discover new insights into cosmetic formulation data using generative artificial intelligence technology (GenAI).

L’Oreal hopes to use GenAI as a tool to support its plans for using sustainable raw materials to reduce energy and material waste. GenAI is in line with the “L’Oreal For The Future” sustainability program’s goal of sourcing the majority of its formulas from biosourced materials by 2030.

The beauty and cosmetics company has been working with IBM as part of its digital transformation journey for several years. Industry 4.0 is a platform that IBM’s Watson internet of things platform (IoT), which supports decision-making, provides. IBM has provided a range technologies to L’Oreal, including IoT, virtual and augmented reality, and AI. These technologies form the foundation of the smarter factories at L’Oreal.

The smarter factory at L’Oreal was launched in 2018. ModiFaceis a company that provides augmented reality and AI for the beauty industry. Amazon customers can now use their front-facing camera to try out different shades of lip gloss in a live video or selfie. This latest application of AI in conjunction with IBM could enhance L’Oreal’s creativeness when it comes to finding new cosmetic formulas to transform beauty industry. The AI model will be developed using a large amount of data points from formulations and components to speed up multiple tasks that L’Oreal must perform, such as the formulation of new cosmetics, reformulation of current cosmetics, and optimisation of scale-up production. This will support L’Oreal’s researchers in the future. IBM Consulting’s role also includes helping L’Oreal redesign and rethink the formulation discovery process. IBM says that understanding the behaviours of renewable ingredients will help L’Oreal create more sustainable products with greater inclusivity for consumers worldwide.

Matthieu Cassier said that this major alliance between IBM and L’Oreal opens a new exciting era in our innovation and development processes. “Building on years’ worth of unique beauty science expertise, and data structuring, the IBM-L’Oreal collaboration is opening a brand new, exciting era.”

IBM called the work “augmented research”a process where highly specialised expertise from artificial intelligence and cosmetics is used to revolutionise formulation.

Guilhaume leroy-Meline is an IBM distinguished engineer for business transformation services in IBM Consulting France. She said that the work embodies AI-augmented research and emphasizes sustainability and diversity.

By Kinza Yasar

By Esther Shittu

By Caroline Donnelly

10 trends affecting the cosmetics industry.

by Kinza Ysar

by:Esther Shittu.