Tech giant IBM and global beauty company L’Oréal announced the launch of a new collaboration aimed at leveraging generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) technology to advance the creation of cosmetics using more sustainable materials and reduced energy and materials waste.

According to the companies, the new collaboration will combine L’Oréal’s expertise in cosmetic science with IBM’s AI technologies to create a first-of-its-kind “formulation foundation model,” to uncover insights in cosmetic formulation data.

Alessandro Curioni, IBM Fellow, Vice President Europe and Africa and Director IBM Research Zurich, said:

“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, customized 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.”

Under the new collaboration, IBM and L’Oreal will develop a custom AI foundation model that will use a large number of formulations and component data points for L’Oreal’s researchers, enabling the acceleration of tasks such as the formulation of new products, reformulation of existing cosmetics and optimization for scale-up production. IBM Consulting will also support L’Oréal in the redesign of its formulation discovery process.

L’Oreal added that the new collaboration will contribute to meeting its “L’Oréal for the future” target to source 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 personalization.”