Heaptalk, Jakarta — The Estée Lauder Companies (ELC), a global cosmetics company, expanded its strategic partnership with Microsoft to develop an AI Innovation Lab.
Both companies will collaborate to leverage generative AI capabilities in Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI Service to deepen consumer connections and speed up marketing with local relevancy of more than 20 beauty brands in ELC. The AI Innovation Lab is expected to drive the two companies as pioneers in applying AI generative in the beauty industry.
In more detail, the expanded strategic partnership will support and build impactful generative AI use cases across several areas of Estée Lauder Companies, including faster response and execution to social trends and consumer demands. Previously, ELC and Microsoft developed an internal-facing generative AI chatbot to enhance marketing effectiveness globally by releasing locally relevant campaigns.
This partnership will leverage generative AI to enable fast and more effective product innovation in ELC. The companies are applying generative AI tools in research and development for quicker product development, allowing scientists and product development specialists to respond more rapidly to emerging product and ingredient trends.
Creating more personalized consumer experiences
“At ELC, technology is always in support of our enduring strengths of high-quality products and high-touch consumer experiences,” said EVP of Enterprise Marketing and chief data officer, The Estée Lauder Companies Jane Lauder.
She further added, “With Microsoft’s generative AI tools and extensive expertise, we are able to leverage ELC’s tremendous data to create more personalized consumer experiences and faster insights to action resulting in increased speed to market and stronger local relevancy. We look forward to continuing our close and collaborative partnership with Microsoft.”
Meanwhile, corporate vice president of Global Industry Solutions at Microsoft Shelley Bransten stated that generative AI represents a significant opportunity for the beauty industry by creating more engaging customer experiences, bringing products to consumers faster, and developing new products more efficiently and sustainably. “We’re proud to collaborate with The Estée Lauder Companies to provide not only a platform for AI innovation, but also deep partnership to bring these new innovations to life,” she said.
Estée Lauder Companies and Microsoft started their strategic partnership in 2017. Previously, ELC launched a Voice-Enabled Makeup Assistant that was developed on Azure AI. This AI assistant is a first-of-its-kind mobile app launched in early 2023 to help visually impaired users more conveniently and confidently apply makeup. The app is available on iOS and Android in the United States, United Kingdom, and Ireland. Further, ELC will roll it out to additional markets and languages in the coming months.
