AI is Leveling the Playing Field For Beauty. Are You in the Game?

In the beauty industry, data has long been a source of power. From spotting emerging trends to shaping product development and marketing strategies, access to the right insights can mean the difference between leading the market and missing the moment. But for years, this kind of commercial intelligence was a luxury only the biggest players could afford — those with the budgets to license expensive datasets and the teams to turn raw data into action.

Smaller brands were often left out — not because they lacked creativity, but because they couldn’t afford the infrastructure.

Now, AI has flipped that model on its head. Just as contract manufacturers enable brands to launch new products without owning a lab, AI enables beauty brands — especially emerging ones — to access advanced analytics and competitive insights without building out an internal data science function or licensing prohibitively expensive tools. AI taps into new types of alternative data and automates the analysis. The result? Faster decisions, lower costs and a much more level playing field.

So how can brands sharpen their competitive edge with AI? Here are three immediate opportunities:

1. Reveal hidden trends that fuel winning products.

Face Serums and the Rise of “Barrier Repair”
Let’s say your brand is exploring expansion into the face serum category. A manual analysis might show that certain brands dominate, and a second-pass look might reveal that vitamin C-based serums are slightly outperforming those with niacinamide for long-term skin improvement. Interesting, sure, but not exactly revolutionary.

An AI-driven analysis, however, can dig deeper, at scale and in seconds. It might reveal that the strongest correlation with high performance in this category isn’t actually tied to ingredients, but to a marketing claim: “barrier repair.” Serums that explicitly focus on repairing or supporting the skin barrier aren’t just trending — they’re outperforming their peers in both sales velocity and units sold per store per week.

This kind of nuance is difficult to spot without AI, but once uncovered, it offers a clear, actionable insight: products that lead with barrier-repair messaging, regardless of the core ingredients, are more likely to capture attention, convert faster and drive sustained retail performance.

2. “De-fragment” the retail landscape for smarter channel strategies.

Winning on Social Doesn’t Always Mean Selling on Social
Today’s retail ecosystem is a chaotic patchwork that includes brick-and-mortar retail and their e-commerce sites, DTC platforms, Amazon, TikTok Shop and more. Understanding what’s working — where, why and for whom — is practically impossible to do manually.

But AI thrives in this complexity. By integrating disparate data sources, AI can consolidate fragmented views into a single dashboard of truth. It helps brands see how trends behave across channels, which products are gaining traction and how consumer preferences shift in each retail environment.

Take Bubble Skincare. Bubble is broadly recognized for its great execution on TikTok and Instagram, thanks to hypertargeted visual storytelling and social-first brand identity. But does that mean TikTok Shop is automatically the go-to sales channel? Not necessarily, as the AI driven data suggests that social success is actually driving significant carryover to traditional retail sales.

With that insight, a new skincare brand can make smarter investments, developing social-first products and partnering with creators, but still pairing those initiatives with a retail-first channel strategy.

3. Predict future demand before the rest of the market sees it.

Liquid Chlorophyll and the Power of Social Signals
Anticipating demand is the holy grail of beauty strategy. And thanks to AI, brands can now integrate unstructured social signals, including reviews, video captions and comments, into predictive models that spotlight breakout trends before they hit mainstream consciousness.

Remember the liquid chlorophyll explosion several years ago? A few TikTok influencers touted its energy and detox benefits, and seemingly overnight, sales spiked. The Vitamin Shoppe alone saw a 500 percent increase in sales of liquid chlorophyll the following week.

Brands using AI would have detected the spike in social buzz early, before inventory flew off shelves. With the right tools, they could have accelerated production, updated messaging or launched targeted campaigns to ride the wave. That’s the power of social-integrated predictive analytics.

AI is the New Beauty Equalizer

AI is doing for data what contract manufacturers did for product development: democratizing access, slashing costs and accelerating innovation. No longer do you need to “own the factory” to play the game.

For beauty brands with big ideas but small budgets, AI offers a game-changing edge: smarter decisions, faster pivots and a real chance to compete with the biggest players in the industry. As the landscape becomes more dynamic and fragmented, brands that embrace AI-driven commerce intelligence will be the ones that win — not by spending more, but by knowing more.

Philip Smolin is the CEO and co-founder of Daash Intelligence, a next generation commerce intelligence platform.