Just like every other industry, the golden era of the AI-powered beauty industry has also begun. With some ground-breaking and novel technologies disrupting the beauty industry, customers who love to adorn their beauty are looking forward to such solutions. It is exceptionally advantageous for beauty brand marketers to explore solutions involving data science, artificial intelligence, and not to be missed robots.
A plethora of multitude factors has reshaped and transformed the needs of consumers and beauty businesses correspondingly. These factors include changes led by the COVID pandemic, online shopping, disruptive technology and growing numbers of digital businesses. Another crucial factor is the transforming needs and shopping behaviours from generation to generation — From Baby Boomers to Millennials to Gen Z. Melissa Hago, VP and creative director of beauty at Fashion Snoops, a global trend forecasting platform, reported that the stoppage caused by the pandemic has compelled businesses to expand their virtual presence and how consumers live and shop.
Keeping all of the above-mentioned factors in mind, many beauty and fashion retailers have been already foraying to include AI and robotics into their business models. We would discuss and consider all the promising and overwhelmingly impressive benefits of the inclusion of AI, robotics and algorithms in this article.
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Super Personalised products and services
Beauty moguls and giant beauty brands have been vigorously and tirelessly working to offer super-personalised products and services to consumers. The importance of personalisation in every industry has been unveiled by the top consumer research reports. Brands can retain shoppers by providing customised and personalised solutions to make them feel loved and celebrated.
Perfect Corp, a Taiwan-based beauty company, rolled out disruptive AI tech to make personalised product recommendations modified as per the personality traits of shoppers. Alice Chang, CEO of Perfect Corp, shared that brands witnessed immediate sales surge after adopting AI. Chang also added a personality-finding SaaS suite, which is patented by AgileFace technology, to augment the solution. Moreover, consumers find it perplexing to find the right shade, texture and type of beauty products that match their skin type, shade and personality type. With AR and VR, they can virtually try on the beauty product, including foundations and creams, before making the final purchase.
2. Robotic Solutions
Shiseido, a Japanese robotic cosmetic firm, initiated a pilot programme to deploy industrial humanoid robots to pack makeup products on the assembly lines at its Kakegawa factory. K- Beauty startup Lillycover, founded by SunHee An, extended its robotic-powered beauty solutions to address scalp issues and offer cosmetic solutions. Coty, a global cosmetics company behind such brands as Sally Hansen, Rimmel and CoverGirl, rolled out eight Universal Robots to automate the packaging of products at the company’s factory in Maryland. The robotic and mobile solution adds $500,000 in annual savings and also improves quality inspection and uplifts the employee work environment.
Canada’s biggest beauty retailer, Modern Beauty, partnered with Attabotics, the world’s first 3D robotics supply chain system, to include modern automation technology in the company’s fulfilment centre in Calgary. Target and Ulta Beauty are next in line to offer robots providing manicures and other beauty services at their stores. These giant companies are betting on robotics as they expedite the processes and lower costs drastically. Additionally, robots increase sales by improving customer service.
3. Accurate Skin and Beauty Advice
Customers love to consult skin specialists for seeking recommendations to improve their skin texture and choose the right products. With the latest AI tools and solutions, they can receive accurate and valid recommendations to find the perfect product that improves their skin needs and conditions. These conditions can include ageing, wrinkles, acne, eczema and dermatitis. The leading example of one such AI-based advisory service is Olay’s Skin Advisor. Olay has certainly excelled by providing an AI-based solution. It allows shoppers to test the products that suit their skin types on a digital screen without having to physically use them.
4. Manufacturing and Product Development
Robots and AI-based solutions offer equal benefits to augment product development and manufacturing departments. With the right research and development, robots can create a product in a much faster and more accurate way by swiftly gathering data. Globally, AI has granted firms the ability to collect and utilize data strategically to predict consumer needs. Unlike past practices, companies are manufacturing and packing a new product much easier with less contamination and alterations.
5. Improved Supply Chain
Companies like 6 River Solutions, Zoox, ABB Robotics, Amazon Robotics and AutoStore have completely transformed the supply chain processes with AI and digitisation. Makeup and beauty brands can collaborate with them to digitise and expedite their supply chain. From picking, packing, shipping and then finally delivering to consumers, robots and AI can tremendously help. Loreal has automated its distribution channels in an impressive way. The firm can now deliver an order every two seconds from its over 500,000 distribution centres situated in 50 countries. Loreal teamed up with Industry 4.0, a cutting-edge technology that was developed to boost efficiency in distribution and delivery.
