What: With the past year’s outbreak of tech-focused acquisitions, and partnerships, beauty brands are building their tech muscle.

Why is it important: Beauty brands are starting to look a lot more like tech companies, complete with their own tech incubators, artificial-intelligence capabilities, and more. Technology has the power to solve several challenges beauty consumers face, such as finding the right skincare or shade of foundation or trying on lipstick without having to buy a new tube.

Some beauty brands implementing tech include:

• Il Makiage bought hyperspectral imaging computer-vision startup Voyage81
• Ulta Beauty invested in AI retail tech company Adeptmind and launched a new virtual try-on    partnership with Google
• Estée Lauder rolled out AR try-on across its entire portfolio
• Clinique built on a beauty lab in the metaverse to promote a new serum

Beauty companies are growing their technology offerings, not just in product development, having the best gadgets, data, and interfaces but in the services and tools, they offer their consumers. The pandemic heightened the importance of digital channels and touch-free product trials, making technologies like virtual try-on table stakes. To win over consumers, beauty brands must build out technological expertise in everything surrounding the product as well as the product itself.

Certain significant developments have not yet trickled down to consumers due to factors such as mainstream hardware on mobile phones are not up to date, and gaps in knowledge between brand executives and tech developers. As technology becomes an increasingly important part of the industry, beauty executives will need to be more tech-literate.

Beauty industry slowly resembling Silicon Valley