IBM And L'oral To Build First AI Model To Advance The Creation Of Sustainable Cosmetics

1/17/2025 3:05:57 AM

(MENAFN- ForPressRelease) Paris & New York January 16, 2025: IBM (NYSE: IBM) and LOral, the worlds leading beauty company, announced a collaboration to leverage IBM's generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) technology and expertise to uncover new insights in cosmetic formulation data, facilitating LOrals use of sustainable raw materials, for energy and material waste reductions. This unique effort will develop a custom AI foundation model engineered to significantly increase the ability of LOral Research & Innovation teams to reach extra performance and consumer satisfaction in every cosmetic category and every region of the world. The formulation foundation model is believed to be a first-of-its-kind in the industry, redefining AI innovation at the intersection of beauty, chemistry and technology.

The collaboration combines LOral's unparalleled expertise in cosmetic science with IBM's cutting-edge artificial intelligence technologies for scientific discoveries, to unlock a future where science and technology can inform or help prioritize solutions that are both ecologically responsible and innovative. To preserve Earth's natural resources, it is critical to explore renewable, sustainably sourced raw materials when developing consumer products. This effort will contribute to helping LOral meet its LOral for the Futures target of sourcing most of its product formulas based on bio-sourced materials and/or the circular economy by 2030.

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 personalization, declares Stphane Ortiz, Head of Innovation Mtiers & Product Development LOral Research & Innovation.

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 LOral Research & Innovation.

This collaboration is a truly impactful application of generative AI, leveraging the power of technology and expertise for the good of the planet, said Alessandro Curioni, IBM Fellow, Vice President Europe and Africa and Director IBM Research Zurich. At IBM, we believe in the power of purpose-built, customized AI to help transform businesses. Using IBMs latest AI technology, LOral 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.

This alliance between highly specialized expertise in artificial intelligence and cosmetics seeks to revolutionize cosmetic formulation. It embodies the spirit of AI-augmented research, emphasizing sustainability and diversity", declares Guilhaume Leroy-Mline, IBM Distinguished Engineer, Business Transformation Services CTO, IBM Consulting France.

The creation of this AI model will use a large number of formulations and component data points to accelerate multiple tasks to be performed by LOral, including the formulation of new products, reformulation of existing cosmetics and optimization for scale-up production tools that will better equip LOrals 4,000 researchers worldwide over the next several years. In addition, IBM Consulting will support L'Oral in its aim to rethink and redesign the formulation discovery process. Understanding the behaviors of renewable ingredients in cosmetic formulas will help LOral build out more sustainable product lines with greater inclusivity and personalization for its consumers around the world.

Foundation models are a type of AI model trained on a broad set of unlabeled data, capable of performing various tasks and applying information from one situation to another. These models have significantly advanced the field of natural language processing (NLP) technology over the past several years, and IBM is pioneering applications of foundation models beyond language, in areas such as chemistry, time series and geospatial modalities. IBM's AI technology has the potential to augment LOrals creativity in finding new cosmetic formulations to transform the beauty industry. LOral, together with IBMs expertise and technology, will help to shape a future where innovation meets sustainability, delivering products that will be as unique as the people who use them daily.

About LOral

For 115 years, LOral, the worlds leading beauty player, has devoted itself to one thing only: fulfilling the beauty aspirations of consumers around the world. Our purpose, to create the beauty that moves the world, defines our approach to beauty as essential, inclusive, ethical, generous and committed to social and environmental sustainability. With our broad portfolio of 37 international brands and ambitious sustainability commitments in our LOral for the Future programme, we offer each and every person around the world the best in terms of quality, efficacy, safety, sincerity and responsibility, while celebrating beauty in its infinite plurality.

With more than 90,000 committed employees, a balanced geographical footprint and sales across all distribution networks (e-commerce, mass market, department stores, pharmacies, perfumeries, hair salons, branded and travel retail), in 2023 the Group generated sales amounting to 41.18 billion euros. With 20 research centers across 11 countries around the world and a dedicated Research and Innovation team of over 4,000 scientists and 6,400 Digital talents, LOral is focused on inventing the future of beauty and becoming a Beauty Tech powerhouse.

About IBM

IBM is a leading provider of global hybrid cloud and AI, and consulting expertise. We help clients in more than 175 countries capitalize on insights from their data, streamline business processes, reduce costs and gain the competitive edge in their industries. More than 4,000 government and corporate entities in critical infrastructure areas such as financial services, telecommunications and healthcare rely on IBM's hybrid cloud platform and Red Hat OpenShift to affect their digital transformations quickly, efficiently and securely. IBM's breakthrough innovations in AI, quantum computing, industry-specific cloud solutions and consulting deliver open and flexible options to our clients. All of this is backed by IBM's long-standing commitment to trust, transparency, responsibility, inclusivity and service