Beauty Brands Are Advancing with AI, but with Great Power Comes Great Responsibility

​Having just dropped our latest reels on both AI and beauty clients at POD LDN, the announcement that L’Oréal is teaming up with NVIDIA “to supercharge beauty with next generation AI” caught my eye. Through the partnership, L’Oréal says it will create 3D product images, personalised shopping experiences and generate content.

This collaboration, plus the recent investments of other luxury giants such as LVMH in AI, sends a powerful signal: beauty brands are no longer just experimenting with AI - they’re reshaping the industry with the biggest players in the game. From 3D product rendering to intelligent marketplaces like Noli, we’re watching beauty pipelines evolve at breakneck speed. Here at POD, we’ve worked previously with L’Oréal and are currently working with Noli, so I’m looking forward to seeing how it develops.

But beyond the headlines, we need transparency: how exactly are these AI agents being trained? What datasets shape their outputs, and who defines their benchmarks for beauty? AI’s rapid advance in beauty also raises key ethical concerns that urgently need to be addressed. One hopes that L’Oréal has a robust advisory board to guide it on these issues, because these decisions will have lasting cultural impact.

The conversation around the impact of AI on beauty standards has been in the spotlight lately, with a recent Guess ad featuring an AI model receiving a major backlash.

The photorealistic blonde AI-generated model was created by tech company Seraphinne Vallora, and while the ad included a disclaimer identifying the model as AI-generated, many people voiced concern over how AI is not only distorting beauty standards, but making them literally unobtainable. One person posted: "Wow! As if the beauty expectations weren't unrealistic enough, here comes AI to make them impossible. Even models can't compete." The ad appeared in Vogue magazine, and while Vogue has said it wasn't an editorial decision, this marks the first time an AI generated model has appeared in the title.

Oscar-winning actress Jamie Lee Curtis is among those speaking out about the harmful effect the beauty industry is having on young people, recently warning that cosmetic surgery and AI beauty filters have “wiped out” natural human appearance for entire generations of women.

Meanwhile, journalist Laura Bates writes about the dangers posed to women and girls by AI, deepfakes and online porn, in her new book “The New Age of Sexism.” As Bates reminds us: unrealistic beauty standards don’t just stay on screens - they shape culture, confidence, and the next generation’s sense of self.

More beauty brands should be taking positive action on this issue, following the example of Dove with its multi-award-winning “Real Beauty Redefined for the AI Era”, which retrained algorithms to promote realistic standards of beauty. At the very least, those brands that are incorporating AI into their marketing and operations need to ensure they are behaving ethically. Brands will also need to be mindful of regulatory pressures that are heading their way, such as the new EU AI code of practice and increased FTC scrutiny in the US, and of the growing concern over use of models and creators’ likenesses without their consent.

The businesses that are scaling these powerful tools have a responsibility. At POD, we embed ethics into our operations and processes, and we’re calling for a similar approach to be standard practice across the industry. We are advising our clients to think not just about how to implement AI quickly, but how to do it well.

There is also the question of what this means for agencies. What will ’L’Oréal’s investment in AI mean for its existing agency partner relationships? Publicis is its long standing creative agency; could this be what finally stalls its recent massive growth? With Meta signalling that it will help advertisers with AI creation of ads next year, can agencies still play a role, particularly when it comes to advising on the ethics side of things?

With AI, we have an amazing opportunity to build a new beauty tech world without old biases, but one that is also responsible and ethical. In this way, creativity and tech can evolve together, enabling brands to truly serve the needs of consumers.

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