How IBM & L'Oréal Will Use AI for Sustainable Cosmetics
The search for sustainable cosmetics is hotting up, with IBM and L'Oréal announcing the development of a new AI custom model.
The technology and cosmetics industry giants will leverage IBM's generative artificial intelligence (Gen AI) technology and expertise to uncover new insights in cosmetic formulation data.
The aim is to boost L'Oréal's use of sustainable raw materials, for energy and material waste reductions.
According to the firms, the custom AI foundation model will be “engineered to significantly increase the ability of L'Oréal Research & Innovation teams to reach extra performance and consumer satisfaction in every cosmetic category and every region of the world”.
Prioritising sustainable solutions
The formulation foundation model is believed to be a first-of-its-kind in the industry.
The collaboration combines L'Oréal's expertise in cosmetic science with IBM's artificial intelligence technologies for scientific discoveries.
The hope is that it will enable science and technology to inform or help prioritise solutions that are ecologically responsible and innovative.
It will also help L'Oréal meet its L'Oréal for the Future target of sourcing most of its product formulas based on bio-sourced materials and/or the circular economy by 2030.
Stéphane Ortiz, Head of Innovation Métiers & Product Development – L'Oréal Research & Innovation, said: "As part of our Digital Transformation Program, this partnership will extend the speed and scale of our innovation and reformulation pipeline, with products always reaching higher standards of inclusivity, sustainability and personalisation.”
"Building on years of unique Beauty science expertise and of data structuring, this major alliance with IBM is opening a new exciting era for our innovation and development process," said Matthieu Cassier, Chief Transformation & Digital Officer – L'Oréal Research & Innovation.
A revolutionary alliance
Leaders at IBM are equally enthusiastic about the collaboration.
Guilhaume Leroy-Méline, IBM Distinguished Engineer, Business Transformation Services CTO, IBM Consulting France, said: "This alliance between highly specialised expertise in artificial intelligence and cosmetics seeks to revolutionise cosmetic formulation.
“It embodies the spirit of AI-augmented research, emphasising sustainability and diversity.”
Alessandro Curioni, IBM Fellow, Vice President Europe and Africa and Director IBM Research Zurich, added: “This collaboration is a truly impactful application of generative AI, leveraging the power of technology and expertise for the good of the planet.
"At IBM, we believe in the power of purpose-built, customised AI to help transform businesses.
“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."
How will it work?
IBM explained: “The AI model will use a large number of formulations and component data points to accelerate multiple tasks to be performed by L'Oréal, including the formulation of new products, reformulation of existing cosmetics and optimisation for scale-up production – tools that will better equip L'Oréal's 4,000 researchers worldwide over the next several years.”
IBM Consulting said it will support L'Oréal in its aim to rethink and redesign the formulation discovery process.
It added: “Understanding the behaviours of renewable ingredients in cosmetic formulas will help L'Oréal build out more sustainable product lines with greater inclusivity and personalisation for its consumers around the world.”
What are foundation models?
Foundation models are a type of AI model trained on a broad set of unlabelled data, capable of performing various tasks and applying information from one situation to another.
They have advanced the field of natural language processing (NLP) technology in recent years.
IBM is pioneering applications of foundation models beyond language, in areas such as chemistry, time series and geospatial modalities.
IBM believes its AI technology has the potential to augment L'Oréal's creativity in finding new cosmetic formulations to transform the beauty industry.
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