IBM, L'Oréal Tap Generative AI for CosmeticsIBM, L'Oréal Tap Generative AI for Cosmetics

IBM and L'Oréal have announced they will join forces to develop a new custom AI foundation model to help the cosmetics giant improve its use of sustainable raw materials and reduce energy and material waste.

The model, which IBM said will be a beauty industry first, would be built using IBM's generative AI technology and be fed cosmetic formulation data from L'Oréal.

The system would use a large number of formulations and component data points to accelerate the formulation of new products, reformulation of existing cosmetics and optimization for scaled production.

By combining L'Oréal's expertise in cosmetic science with IBM's AI technologies, the companies said they expect to “unlock a future where science and technology can inform or help prioritize solutions that are both ecologically responsible and innovative.”

The new tools would better equip L'Oréal's 4,000 researchers worldwide over the next several years. IBM said It could also help the company meet its target of sourcing most of its product formulas based on bio-sourced materials and/or the circular economy by 2030. This is part of its plan to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions of all scopes by 50% per finished product.

Stéphane Ortiz, head of innovation and product development at L'Oréal Research and Innovation, said as part of the company’s digital transformation program the collaboration will extend the speed and scale of the company’s innovation and reformulation pipeline.

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Matthieu Cassier, chief transformation and digital officer at the company, said the alliance with IBM marks “a new exciting era for our innovation and development process.”

IBM Consulting is expected to support L'Oréal to rethink and redesign the formulation discovery process. For example, IBM said understanding the behaviors of renewable ingredients in cosmetic formulas will help the cosmetics company build out more sustainable product lines with greater inclusivity and personalization for its consumers around the world.

In addition, it said the companies’ work together could augment L'Oréal's creativity in finding new cosmetic formulations to transform the beauty industry at large.

"At IBM, we believe in the power of purpose-built, customized AI to help transform businesses,” said Alessandro Curioni, IBM fellow, vice president Europe and Africa and director IBM Research Zurich.

“Using IBM's latest AI technology, L'Oréal will be able to derive meaningful insights from their rich formula and product data to create a tailored AI model to help achieve their operational goals and continue creating high quality and sustainable products.”

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IBM said it is pioneering applications of foundation models beyond language, in areas such as chemistry, time series and geospatial modalities.

This article was first published in IoT World Today's sister publication AI Business.