The beauty industry is dramatically shortening product development timelines by adopting artificial intelligence across the entire process, from raw material discovery to formulation design and production. Competition in the industry is shifting beyond quality to a race for speed.
Cosmax (192820.KQ), a leading Korean ODM company, has significantly improved production efficiency by introducing AI to the color matching stage, a critical process in color cosmetics manufacturing, according to industry sources Wednesday. Color matching is the process of realizing abstract color requests from clients such as "a softly blending rose tint," which traditionally requires researchers to conduct numerous repeated experiments. Cosmax implemented a smart color matching AI system that automatically sets the initial input quantities of color raw materials. As a result, the completion rate within zero to four attempts expanded from 52% to 78.1%, while the proportion of cases requiring five to nine iterations dropped from 47.2% to 21.9%.
Cosmax recently extended AI applications to fragrance development. The company uses AI to detect unexpected "off-notes" that occur when the inherent scents of cosmetic ingredients mix together, significantly reducing the time required for cause analysis and correction. Its customized automated manufacturing system combining AI and robotic arms has advanced to handle more than 3,500 essence varieties and over 10,000 hair product types. The Pyeongtaek 2 plant applied AI robots to half of its entire production lines, improving productivity by 40% compared to before.
Kolmar Korea (161890.KQ) also strengthened its AI capabilities by reorganizing its Convergence Technology Research Institute late last year to establish a new "AI & Innovation Team." Its recently introduced AI-based customized formulation design system analyzes various variables including climate, skin condition, and UV exposure based on extensive user data to derive optimal ingredient combinations. Since implementing the system, formulation design periods that previously required researchers to conduct repeated experiments over several months have been reduced to one-third.
"We are currently expanding the application scope of the AI system while continuing advancement work," a Kolmar Korea official said. "It is being most actively utilized in the sun care field, and expansion to services linked with smartphones or wearable devices will also be possible." The approach involves adjusting protection intensity based on users' real-time UV exposure levels and skin condition data, or providing reapplication alerts according to changes in UV intensity.
LG Household & Health Care (051900.KS) is enhancing its research competitiveness by introducing AI at the cosmetics ingredient discovery stage. LG H&H and LG AI Research succeeded last year in developing cosmetic efficacy ingredients using "Exaone Discovery," an AI model specialized in new substance discovery. The AI analyzes large volumes of molecular structure data to predict the characteristics of each substance. This reduced the discovery period for candidate efficacy ingredients from an average of 22 months to just one day. The company plans to apply high-efficacy ingredients developed through this method to products under its flagship brand "The History of Whoo" as early as this year.
"AI adoption is expanding beyond simple process automation to the level of redesigning the entire cycle from product planning to launch," an industry official said. "As product development speed directly leads to market dominance, competition over AI utilization capabilities will become even more intense."