The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. and Google Cloud Partner to Transform the Online Consumer Experience with Generative AI

A global leader in prestige beauty leverages generative AI across brands to better understand consumers, inform R&D efforts, and transform the digital brand experience

Today, Google Cloud and The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. (ELC) (NYSE: EL), a global leader in prestige beauty, announced an expansion of their strategic partnership to pioneer new uses of generative AI across ELC’s brand sites as part of its mission to transform the luxury digital experience. ELC was an early collaborator in the beauty industry to tap Google Cloud to accelerate its technology strategy. Through this partnership, ELC and Google Cloud will collaboratively explore AI-powered solutions to better understand consumer sentiment, inform R&D efforts, and translate the magic of prestige beauty brands into best-in-class, high-touch digital experiences.

Google Cloud’s gen AI capabilities will power real-time monitoring of consumer sentiment and feedback, allowing ELC to proactively address consumer concerns, respond to external trends, and ultimately improve consumer experiences. ELC is also developing new gen AI business applications on Google Cloud’s AI platform, Vertex AI, to streamline operations and simplify business workflows to drive down operating costs while creating new opportunities for productivity. ELC is also using PaLM 2, Google’s large language model (LLM), to more completely understand consumer sentiment on brand channels like social media, call center operations, and more.

“At The Estée Lauder Companies, we aim to delight consumers with transformative products and services. Through our collaboration with Google Cloud, we are creating high-touch, personalized experiences online that our consumers expect from every interaction with our brands,” said Gibu Thomas, EVP Online, The Estée Lauder Companies Inc. “By working with Google Cloud’s generative AI technologies, our data science teams are unlocking new ways to serve our consumers.“

Today’s announcement builds on top of a multi-year partnership between the two companies in which ELC has worked with its development partner, Eviden, to deploy a data analytics platform across marketing, sales, and operations. Using Google Cloud technologies, such as Vertex AI, BigQuery, and Looker, ELC has been able to consolidate its data into a single environment to better understand consumer intent and tailor consumer experiences for 20+ brands (including Estée Lauder, Clinique, Tom Ford Beauty, and more) across 40+ countries. With Google Cloud’s Retail Search and Recommendations AI solutions, ELC has created personalized experiences for consumers across its websites to increase consumer satisfaction, create new cross-selling opportunities, and optimize customer lifetime value.

“The beauty market is undergoing a significant transition, with heightened consumer expectations, ever-changing trends, and a shift to personalization,” said Thomas Kurian, CEO, Google Cloud. “Our work with The Estée Lauder Companies to build a foundational data platform is now helping drive new generative AI use cases that will transform the consumer experience and the beauty industry overall.“

Tune into Google Cloud Next, Google Cloud’s annual user conference, which kicks off today, to learn more about how ELC is using generative AI to transform the online consumer experience, The company will be speaking during two sessions which are available both in-person and virtually:

• Accelerate your generative AI projects with new tools on Vertex AI with Eric Higgins, VP, Data Science, ELC on Tuesday, August 29 from 11 to 11:45am PDT.
• Deliver next-generation retail experiences today with Gibu Thomas, EVP, Online, ELC on Wednesday, August 30 from 2:15 to 3:00 PDT.