Beauty companies are increasingly shifting AI strategies from operational efficiency toward discovery and personalization. dsm-firmenich is applying AI to ingredient discovery through its partnership with Boltz, while The Estée Lauder Companies (ELC) is using AI-powered insights through Profound to optimize brand visibility across generative search platforms.
dsm-firmenich’s partnership with Boltz will leverage the biomolecular modeling AI start-up’s proprietary foundation models in the global flavors and fragrances company’s ingredient-discovery process and will use them to develop scent molecules.
“Having launched the world’s first AI-created flavor back in 2020, dsm-firmenich has long been a pioneer in the use of AI,” says Sarah Reisinger, chief science and research officer at dsm-firmenich. “Being at the very forefront of this technology brings significant value to our businesses.”
For ELC, its partnership with the “fastest-growing” AI marketing platform is exploring how its portfolio of brands is represented across generative AI platforms and opportunities to leverage and enhance that representation.
“The way people discover beauty is being rewritten in real time, and we intend to shape that shift rather than reacting to it,” says Aude Gandon, global chief digital and marketing officer at ELC.
Molecule discovery through AI
dsm-firmenich is applying AI models to advance scent molecule discovery.
dsm-firmenich’s partnership with Boltz combines AI models with the ingredients company’s vast library of scent receptor data. The company states that the collaboration will encourage creative possibilities across the businesses, accelerating innovation and opening up new spaces for innovation.
“The result [of the partnership] will be a set of exclusive models that capture decades’ worth of know-how in sensory sciences,” says the company,
“These models will be used for predicting and designing molecule structure, learning how molecules interact with the specialized proteins that are our receptors — the sensors in our noses, mouths, and other parts of our bodies that translate the chemistry of the outside world into signals our brain can understand.”
According to dsm-firmenich, AI technology emboldens creativity. The company states that it uses AI differently than other industry players: “Rather than simply improving efficiency, we’re using it to further boost the creativity of our creators, opening new possibilities across nutrition, health, and beauty,” it says.
In a recent interview, Vantage Personal Care told Personal Care Insights that its AI-driven tech concept was “built around merging human creativity and design with innovative AI capabilities to make beauty better, smarter, and more personal than ever.”
Through its Boltz partnership, dsm-firmenich will gain full access to the start-up’s platform, including the Boltz Lab interface for scientists, the Boltz API, and a new integration with large language model agents.
“Beyond pharmaceuticals, biomolecular interaction and design models have the potential to transform life science products across many industries,” says Gabriele Corso, co-founder and CEO at Boltz.
Corso calls odor and taste receptors “some of the most interesting and understudied proteins in the human body.”
The company says the technology will enable perfumers, flavorists, and scientists to explore molecular possibilities more efficiently while expanding creative options.
ELC makes AI discovery leadership play
ELC is using AI to enhance beauty discovery and brand visibility.
Consumers are increasingly turning to AI assistants for beauty discovery and personalized recommendations. ELC aims to stay ahead of this rapidly evolving discovery curve by partnering with Profound.
Touted as one of the fastest-growing AI marketing platforms, Profound is used by 16% of the Fortune 500. The partnership establishes ELC as the first in prestige beauty to leverage Profound’s abilities across its full portfolio and operationalize Generative Engine Optimization (GEO) and AI marketing at scale.
“The Estée Lauder Companies recognizes that understanding how its brands are represented across AI is now essential to serving consumers wherever they choose to discover products and information,” says James Cadwallader, CEO and co-founder at Profound.
“Through this partnership, the company is now approaching GEO in the way the best marketers approach any platform shift: early, comprehensively, and with real operational commitment. Enabling this strategy at scale across an entire prestige beauty portfolio sets a new bar for what enterprise AI visibility strategy looks like in this category.”
The Profound partnership will allow ELC insights into how and when its products are recommended and what areas of growth there are.
ELC says it will leverage these insights alongside Profound’s software to enhance content across brands’ online presence. The company aims to optimize product visibility to consumers. The move is part of ELC’s ambition to be a leader in prestige beauty’s AI-native discovery.
“This partnership gives every brand in our portfolio the ability to show up distinctly, consistently, and accurately wherever our consumers are asking for recommendations. Our work with Profound is a natural extension of how we already think about culture, community, and commerce working together — and it puts us at the front of an industry-wide transition,” says Gandon.
Beauty industry AI moves
Beauty companies are using AI to develop formulations and consumer insights.
Both dsm-firmenich and ELC’s partnerships closely echo other industry experts’ suggestions regarding optimal AI use in beauty. Recently, a Croda spokesperson told us that AI’s transformative potential should lie in scientific discovery and dynamic personalization.
Earlier this year, L’Oréal also expanded its AI partnership with tech giant Nvidia, aimed at accelerating and redefining beauty innovation through AI-driven computational chemistry.
Similarly, Unilever’s Beauty & Wellbeing scientists are using AI in a bid to decode consumer trends and mine decades of research data.
However, a Vantage spokesperson recently warned that the current beauty tech landscape’s AI saturation may reach a plateau. She told us that the industry interest in AI may flatten, with Gen Z consumers increasingly demanding more minimalist routines with sustainability as a non-negotiable.
“Many companies are claiming their products are based on AI, in much the same way the industry saw an overpopulation of fast fashion before consumers began questioning its sustainability and gravitated toward quality over quantity,” she said.
dsm-firmenich is applying AI models to advance scent molecule discovery.
dsm-firmenich is applying AI models to advance scent molecule discovery.dsm-firmenich is applying AI models to advance scent molecule discovery.
ELC is using AI to enhance beauty discovery and brand visibility.ELC is using AI to enhance beauty discovery and brand visibility.ELC is using AI to enhance beauty discovery and brand visibility.Beauty companies are using AI to develop formulations and consumer insights.
Beauty companies are using AI to develop formulations and consumer insights.Beauty companies are using AI to develop formulations and consumer insights.
