AI and What It Brings to the Future of Beauty

With the onset of AI, beauty is evolving into a hyper-personalized space, a shift marked by both promise and constraint.

Step into a beauty counter today and the future is already here. A handheld scanner hovers over your cheek to map texture and pigmentation, an app lets you swipe between lipstick shades tailored to your complexion, and a smartwatch quietly keeps time with the beat of your heart in the background. These everyday encounters with technology reflect a transformation that has been years in the making, beauty evolving from surface rituals into a deeper, more personalized conversation with wellness. And now, with the rise of artificial intelligence, that conversation is becoming hyper personalized, opening doors to both possibility and constraint.

Over the past few years, artificial intelligence has quickly become a major force in beauty, and experts predict that its presence will only continue to grow. Coming away from the ’90s and 2000s, beauty has moved from a YouTube and influencer-heavy era into one where consumers are more focused on looking inward. This shift explains the rise of makeup-skincare hybrids, reflecting a growing recognition that beauty isn’t just about appearances, it is increasingly tied to health and self-care. The convergence of beauty and wellness set the stage for AI to slip seamlessly into our routines.

Today, wearable tech collects data to help manage health, virtual try-on tools let us test products in seconds, and AI-powered devices at the counter can offer advice once only available in dermatology clinics. In an exclusive interview with VML Intelligence, global director Emma Chiu cites their gathered data: “70 percent of millennials and 68 percent of Gen Z say that AI tools will allow us to be more creative and progressive in imagining the future of people.”

That openness is echoed by Vogue Business beauty editor Nateisha Scott, who reflected on her research for the Future of Appearance series, a collection of articles that investigates how technological innovation will affect what we’ll look like in 20 years. During a podcast episode of The Run-Through with Vogue, she shares, “It was surprising to see that many consumers were actually open to investing in AI in the future. But they did have their reasons, that being it’s to help them predict future appearances. They want to incorporate AI into their routines to know exactly what’s going to work for their skin.”

But if AI promises new frontiers, it also raises tensions. Long before ChatGPT, its earliest presence in beauty came through filters. By the mid-2010s, plastic surgeons had coined the term “Snapchat dysmorphia,” noting a shift when people began bringing in AI-beautified portraits instead of celebrity pictures.

Generative AI has since pushed those ideals further. Platforms like Pinterest are awash with algorithmically crafted images of poreless skin and symmetrical faces, while CGI influencers like Lil Miquela, ethnically ambiguous, algorithmically perfected, and existing only online, blur the line between aspiration and reality. In the ongoing conversation about inclusivity, AI introduces a new but limited voice. Trained on narrow datasets, it often recreates regressive or homogenized standards of beauty instead of reflecting the diversity fought for in the physical world.

“The role of AI in the beauty industry is a double-edged sword,” Chiu posits. “On one hand, the very positive side, it is allowing for more forms of self-expression, experimentation, innovation. Yet on the other spectrum, right now we’re seeing a lot of beauty progression being pushed back in some ways. As a generation, we have really pushed the agenda in terms of embracing unique features, different skin tones, ethnicity, different body shapes and sizes. And AI is not quite embracing that, partly because they’re not trained in the same sort of breadth that exists in the physical world. So I think there’s a lot of work to be done.”

For her, an inclusive AI future means teaching these systems to understand nuance: “I do think ultimately beauty is not just skin deep. It’s really about how we can portray our identity and better express that through different tools that we have. We’ve been doing this for many years with makeup, and now we have digital tools such as AI in our hands, and I think this is just another way we can express ourselves.”

If filters and avatars illustrate the risks of homogenization, the flip side of AI in beauty is its ability to create solutions to real problems. In 2023, Estée Lauder introduced the Voice-enabled Makeup Assistant, an app designed for the blind and visually impaired that provides audio feedback on makeup application. That same year, Lancôme launched Hapta, a smart handheld applicator that helps those with limited hand or arm mobility apply lipstick more easily. YSL Beauty, Charlotte Tilbury, Kiehl’s, and L’Oréal continue to experiment with ways to harness AI for more intimate, adaptive consumer experiences.

The potential stretches into wellness too. In an exclusive interview, Amy Kelly, an LMFT therapist, psychotherapist, and businesswoman, recalls how she first encountered the power of AI in health: “My entire career has been around behavior change and how to help people, motivate them to make better decisions in their lives,” she explains. “And then I was approached about three years ago by the former chief technology officer of Lyft. He showed me this prototype that he had been building with a physician, and said, AI is changing everything. We can now create more pathways for personal health and wellness, so everyone has access to that care. I saw it, and I thought, this is amazing. This is going to change the world.”

Kelly went on to found Miri AI, which turns static care plans into dynamic, brand-embedded AI coaches that businesses can deploy quickly and affordably. Its impact is already clear in clients like Vituity, an ecosystem of longevity and private clinics, where patients on GLP-1 treatments, for example, can use the technology to balance weight loss with muscle retention. Rather than receiving generic advice printed on a sheet of paper, they now access adaptive coaching that adjusts to their progress in real time. “I think what AI does is what I’ve been thinking of through the trajectory of my whole career,” Kelly reflects. “How do we make personalized care affordable and accessible? Now with AI, people can have access to care for, you know, USD5 a month. Everything has changed.”

“I think the thing to be mindful of is to know the boundaries of what AI can do and what it can’t do,” she continues. “It’s not a replacement for human care. But it can help you stay on a program and follow up with notifications, track and check in about those goals, and reinforce some educational learning.”

While concerns persist that innovations like these may only serve the privileged demographic in the long run, both Kelly and Chiu stress that AI actually holds the potential to broaden ac- cess. “I do think a lot of new innovation and technology quite often are disproportionately distributed, and it is those who have access, or those who have the income to access, that are able to play or engage with that,” Chiu reflects. “How- ever, with AI, I do really believe it’s… going to become the norm. At some point, AI will become ubiquitous for us all, and we’re in the early stages of AI reaching the mass market.”

The rise of AI-powered beauty opens the industry to both promise and constraint. But the more pressing question may be: who gets to define beauty in this age of technological innovation? As Chiu cautions: “AI isn’t going anywhere. [Balancing innovation with responsibility] requires companies who are at the fore- front of artificial intelligence to also put in healthy parameters. It’s really down to industries to kind of band together and be strong with the type of values that they uphold.” Kelly agrees: “My recommendation and thoughts about how to ethically build something that is safe is, as a clinician, you must have the guardrails. It’s got to come from sound medical advice. You have to have a clinician in the room building with you.”

The cultural conversation is already unfolding. Chiu points to Virtual Beauty, an exhibition running at London’s Somerset House from July 23 to September 29, 2025, which brings together more than 20 international artists to explore how artificial intelligence, social media, and virtual identities are reshaping beauty and self-representation in the digital age. In a text accompanying the exhibition, Mathilde Friis reflects: “The real question isn’t whether beauty is liberating or constraining, but how we use it, and who gets to decide. If we are to be the makers of our image, let it be with awareness. Let it be with playfulness. Let it be with power. And let it include everyone.”