After more than a year of using an artificial intelligence (AI)-powered skin analysis tool, beauty retailer Face Haus has seen meaningful consumer behavior, according to chief operating officer Namrata Gupta.

The tool, Skin IQ — which technology company Perfect Corp. developed — has helped Face Haus with both customer acquisition and retention. 42% of its new customers who used the Skin IQ analysis tool returned to shop with Face Haus within 90 days, according to the retailer.

In addition to selling health and beauty products online, Face Haus operates studios in Dallas and Santa Monica, California. It also offers services in Chase Sapphire Lounges at select U.S. airports. In all three cases, it uses Skin IQ to scan consumers’ faces and assess potential conditions. It also helps recommend Face Haus products and services that can help with those conditions.

“We’ve always been interested in how to adapt digital as a tool to help along our aestheticians and our guests in an effort to get them to be better educated about their skin care options,” Gupta told Digital Commerce 360. “Trend-wise, it does sound like all things are pointing to AI and AI-generated information and how that’s used to provide skin care services or recommendations.”

How Face Haus is using AI to inform both products and services

Gupta noted that Face Haus sought a way to provide more than a surface-level service at airport lounges. Its clients at those lounges have limited time for treatment before flights. Face Haus also wanted a way to build on that treatment with skin care analysis and health markers, she said.

Whereas some clients and consumers are well-versed about their skin, many are not, she said. Face Haus uses Skin IQ as a starting point. Gupta said that helps both the client and the aesthetician make informed decisions about what kinds of treatment they want or need.

“With new guests, we wanted to make sure it was a substantial experience,” Gupta told Digital Commerce 360. “It wasn’t just about, ‘OK, this is what I’m going to do to you today and here’s why,’ but to really also show you visually and have that validation.”

She compared the analysis to getting an X-ray at a doctor’s office. It’s another form of information to factor into treatment. Face Haus didn’t want its customers to “walk out more perplexed about their skin, but rather well-educated and ready to be on their skin care journey,” she said.

Often, travelers are “super dehydrated” by the time they arrive at airport lounges, Gupta said. That type of data and more, which Face Haus pulls from Skin IQ results, helps inform the brand about what products it should consider developing.

“It’s very helpful from a product-development standpoint, understanding what other new innovative skin care treatments we could create and then also just kind of knowing what kinds of products we could look at developing in the future,” Gupta said.

Developing the Face Haus and Perfect Corp. Skin IQ tool

“We had a very preliminary, very rudimentary version of Skin IQ that we shared with the Perfect Corp. team back in 2022,” Gupta told Digital Commerce 360.

There was an incubation period to understand its next iteration, she said. Face Haus wanted to “elevate the overall digital experience” and began working with Perfect Corp. in 2023, she added.

“We have been fixated on skin IQ and delivering on customer experience within the digital space, but then also in-house and how we can mesh the two,” Gupta said.

AI has shifted considerably since 2023, according to Wayne Liu, chief growth officer at Perfect Corp. People knew about AI, but not too much, he said.

“And then at the end of 2023, we have ChatGPT,” Liu told Digital Commerce 360. “So everybody’s talking about AI. But the problem here is will everybody know how to use AI?”

He said technology companies like Perfect Corp. have an obligation to create AI tools with clear guidance on how to use them. There is an extent to which Perfect Corp.’s AI can act like a dermatologist or aesthetician, he said. However, the use he sees for the AI-powered beauty technology is to enhance consultations.

“Instead of the customer, the client, going to the doctor without knowing anything, now the doctor already has some idea about the customer’s skin condition,” Liu said.

At the same time, the patient or client feels empowered to know their skin condition before meeting with a dermatologist or aesthetician, he said.

“That’s a good way to use it instead of letting AI do whatever they want to do,” Liu said.

Do you rank in our databases? 

Submit your data and we’ll see where you fit in our next ranking update.

Sign up

Stay on top of the latest developments in the online retail industry. Sign up for a complimentary subscription to Digital Commerce 360 Retail News. Follow us on LinkedIn, X (formerly Twitter), Facebook and YouTube. Be the first to know when Digital Commerce 360 publishes news content.