A Beautiful Future With GenAI: Insights From L'Oréal And Microsoft

Forbes

2 days ago

Beauty is a battleground.
It's one of the world's most demanding industries, driven by younger consumers, relentless pressure to innovate, and the challenge of delivering millions of SKUs across global markets.
PARIS, FRANCE - SEPTEMBER 23: L'Oreal Ambassadors walk the runway during "Le Défilé L'Oréal Paris – ... More Walk Your Worth" Womenswear Spring-Summer 2025 show as part of Paris Fashion Week on September 23, 2024 in Paris, France. (Photo byfor L'Oréal Paris)
Most companies respond by trying to move faster.
L'Oréal is doing something different; Using AI to unlock new forms of creativity and turn participation into a competitive advantage.
Inside L'Oréal's AI Beauty Assistant: What Shoppers Want Now
L'Oréal Paris has launched Beauty Genius, a Gen AI-powered personal beauty assistant, available 24/7 ... More
At mass retail, shoppers don't get the same expert guidance available at department stores or prestige beauty retailers.
Beauty Genius, L'Oréal Paris' AI assistant, was built to close that gap by offering tailored recommendations and product education 24/7 across a massive selection of more than 750 items.
Since launching in October 2024, Beauty Genius has powered more than half a million conversations. A newly announced WhatsApp partnership will bring the service to a platform with more than 3 billion monthly users, making expert guidance feel as accessible as texting a friend. And it's working. Users who engage with AI-powered recommendations share valuable information, convert at significantly higher rates, and spend more per transaction.
Asmita Dubey is the Chief Digital & Marketing Officer for the L'Oréal Groupe, world leader in ... More beauty, with a purpose to Create the Beauty that Moves the World.
Beauty Genius is just one example. L'Oréal is rapidly scaling AI from pilots to infrastructure, reshaping how the company competes and creates.
At the center of that transformation is Asmita Dubey, L'Oréal's Chief Digital and Marketing Officer. Her strategy, which she calls the 'new infrastructure of creativity,' is grounded in a global perspective shaped by more than a decade serving as CMO, L'Oreal China & Asia Pacific, where she saw firsthand how digital access reshapes economies, industries, and consumer behavior.
Dubey is now applying that same mindset to creativity. She is building systems that lower the barrier to contribution and raise the quality of output, arming internal teams and external creators with the tools and training to work faster, think bigger, and shape how beauty shows up in culture.
'We want to augment marketers and creators with this dual muscle of math and magic,' she said. 'If anybody can be creative, then in the end, you need human creativity and GenAI to make the best output.'
It is a long-term investment rooted in a clear read of where the world is heading: a rising global middle class, longer life spans, and a generation of consumers who expect personalized, tech-enabled experiences across every touchpoint. This is how L'Oréal turns scale into an advantage. By opening its system to more contributors, it can anticipate business opportunities earlier and act faster
Every year, the Cannes Lions Festival of Creativity offers a snapshot of what matters most to the world's most prominent marketers and tech platforms. In 2025, one theme dominated: AI. However, while most conversations focused on automation and productivity, one mainstage session offered a more expansive vision. The session, AI and the Future of Creativity, featured Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI and co-founder of DeepMind, and Colleen DeCourcy, the former chief creative officer of Snap and Co-President and Chief Creative Officer of Wieden and Kennedy, focused on creativity and humanity.
REDMOND, WASHINGTON - APRIL 4: Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman speaks during an event highlighting ... More Microsoft Copilot, the company's AI tool, on April 4, 2025 in Redmond, Washington. The company also celebrated its 50th Anniversary. (Photo by)
He described AI as 'an advocate, a companion, a friend,' a system that can 'sense where I need it to go to solve my problem.'
Suleyman also spoke to a pivotal shift in creative access. 'For all of software history, you had to learn a mathematical language,' he said. 'But we're now in a moment where computers will speak natural language. The barrier to entry is lower than ever before.'
His message reinforced what L'Oréal is already putting into practice: AI doesn't just make marketing more efficient, it changes who gets to participate and how fast great ideas can scale.
And in a world of infinite content, that matters more than ever. 'The quality bar is about to go through the roof,' Suleyman said. 'Curation is still going to matter. Brand is going to matter more than ever before. People make decisions based on trust.'
L'Oréal's investment in AI is a long-term bet on people. By equipping more voices to contribute and create, the company can bring better ideas to market faster and build stronger connections with consumers on a global scale
At L'Oreal we love to follow the Groupe's mantra 'to seize what is starting'. We are continuously ... More reinventing beauty experiences for the Groupe's 37 global brands driven by purpose, by multi-sensorial journeys in physical, digital & virtual worlds, by using data across business levers and by exploring new frontiers like AI/ Gen AI; to drive responsibly the best consumer engagement with beauty.
The New Codes of Beauty program is a clear expression of Dubey's strategy. In partnership with Meta, L'Oréal is supporting a new generation of creators. 'We are going to find and train this next generation of creators who are very good with 3D, AR, and AI tools,' Dubey said. 'That brings innovation into that storytelling.'
Over 50 campaigns have already launched across brands including L'Oréal Paris, Lancôme, and La Roche-Posay.
In a category where content drives trial and conversion, investing in the people behind that content helps L'Oréal stay both culturally relevant and commercially successful. 'Technology is coming to creativity, and it's not a friend or a foe. It's how you use it,' Dubey explained.
L'Oréal's performance is proof: creativity scales when you invest in the right people and build the infrastructure to support them.
This isn't a test-and-learn era. It's a build-and-lead moment.
L'Oréal's AI strategy doesn't treat technology as a shortcut. It treats it as an enabler of better thinking, faster storytelling, and broader inclusion. Dubey's vision makes marketing more human by making creativity more accessible and raising the quality bar.
PARIS, FRANCE - JUNE 11: The logo of the French cosmetics industrial group L'OREAL is displayed ... More during the 9th edition of the VivaTech show at Parc des Expositions Porte de Versailles on June 11, 2025 in Paris, France. VivaTech, the biggest tech show in Europe but also in a unique digital format, for 4 days of reconnection and relaunch thanks to innovation. The event brings together startups, CEOs, investors, tech leaders and all of the digital transformation players who are shaping the future of the Internet. The annual technology conference, also known as VivaTech, was founded in 2016 by Publicis Groupe and Groupe Les Echos and is dedicated to promoting innovation and startups. (Photo)
'We're putting AI into the hands of people shaping the future of beauty,' Dubey said. 'If we want creators to evolve, we must evolve too. That means giving them the right tools, platforms, and the freedom to tell stories in new ways.'
It's not about man versus machine. It's about the future of brand building in a world where everyone can create.
And who you equip determines what you scale.