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Artificial intelligence is the undisputed main character of 2026, showing up everywhere from the wedding industry to perfume creation. But even while AI’s place in society remains contentious — in the buzzy “The Devil Wears Prada 2,” AI is a bigger antagonist than Miranda Priestly — beauty brands and retailers are rushing to adopt AI into their platforms. That includes two of beauty’s major players, Sephora and Ulta.  In March, Sephora announced an integration of its app within ChatGPT, while Ulta Beauty announced its own artificial intelligence integration via a partnership with Google Gemini just a month later.  On this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, hosts Lexy Lebsack and Sara Spruch-Feiner are joined by senior beauty reporter Emily Jensen to discuss Sephora's and Ulta’s recent investments into AI, and how agentic shopping is poised to evolve in the beauty industry. How exactly AI will shape the consumer pipeline and influencer beauty shopping in the months and years to come remains to be seen. But with Amazon (and its proprietary AI capabilities) on Sephora's and Ulta’s heels as a major beauty retailer, the beauty retailers are diving right in rather than risking getting left behind.

Over the past three years, L'Oréal Group has been quietly assembling the perfect team, ingredient, product and marketing rollout for its next big skin-care category: longevity.  Helmed by veteran L'Oréal Group executive Vania Lacascade, a doctor of pharmacy and MBA who has spent more than 15 years with the conglomerate, the first longevity skin-care range dropped on May 1 under the Lancôme brand.  Lacascade has worked across brands for L'Oréal Group and served as the chief innovation officer from 2023 to 2025. where she readied the conglomerate for its pivot into longevity. In 2025, she became the global brand president of Lancôme, overseeing the launch.  “One of the most significant projects I had to lead was this ambitious roadmap around longevity for beauty, and now, as the president of Lancôme, I have the opportunity to bring this roadmap to life,” Lacascade told Glossy. “With this launch, [called] Absolue MD, it's really this bridge between laboratory science and women's daily lives.”  The term longevity has become mainstream since the Covid-19 pandemic, as the wellness industry has exploded in popularity. Longevity is defined as living a longer, healthier life. In the health and wellness fields, it’s often measured by a mix of lifespan, or how long one lives, and healthspan, or the quality of that life. How the term applies to beauty is still being decided.  “If we manage to live longer, the first priority is to live better, and what was interesting to me is, ‘How do you translate this shift when it comes to skin? When it comes to beauty?'” she said.  Lacascade told Glossy that she sees anti-aging and longevity products as complementary. For example, anti-aging is corrective: “Correcting the loss of collagen, correcting wrinkles, so those types of skin care are here to treat the symptoms and address very, very specifically different kinds of signs of aging,” she said. Meanwhile, longevity is “treating the root cause of aging,” she said.  To power the company’s vision, L'Oréal’s venture capital fund, BOLD, acquired a minority stake in Swiss biotech company Timeline in 2024. It then leveraged the company’s Mitopure ingredient, which works through cellular repair, to power L'Oréal’s first longevity skin-care launch, called Lancôme’s Absolue MD. The new line dropped with three moisturizers made for different ages. The Anticipate cream is for those under 35 years old, while Intercept is made for those ages 35-55, and Reset was designed for who are 55-plus. Each is $155. In today’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, Lacascade walks host Lexy Lebsack through her vision for L'Oréal Group’s continued expansion into longevity, the Lancôme launch that kicked it off, and how the team is leveraging celebrity ambassadors like Demi Moore and Zoe Saldaña to spread the word.

On Sunday, Amazon wrapped up its fourth-annual Summer Beauty Event. Over two weeks, Amazon tempted shoppers with discounts of up to 50% on everything from makeup to vitamins. Even prior to the sale, the retailer did not seem to have trouble courting the beauty consumer. According to data from e-commerce agency Front Row, Amazon cleared $8 billion in U.S. beauty revenue in the first quarter of 2026. But Amazon wants more than just a place to snag beauty at a discount; it wants to be known as a premium beauty destination. On this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, hosts Lexy Lebsack and Sara Spruch-Feiner are joined by senior beauty reporter Emily Jensen to discuss the strategy around the e-commerce giant's beauty sales and assortment, and how it's attempting to position itself as a prestige beauty retailer on par with the likes of Sephora and Ulta Beauty. For Amazon, that means not only upping its brand assortment, which has grown to include everything from K-beauty favorites like Medicube to Puig-owned Charlotte Tilbury in recent months, but also encouraging consumers to use its AI-powered shopping assistants in lieu of in-person sales associates. According to Amazon, 300 million customers used its AI shopping assistant Rufus in 2025. On Wednesday, after the recording of this episode, Amazon announced it would replace the Rufus AI assistant with Alexa for Shopping.

What is PDRN? You've probably seen the four letters on serum bottles, sheet masks and even lip balms — or heard them on TikTok. PDRN stands for polydeoxyribonucleotide and typically refers to a DNA fragment that's often, but not always, derived from salmon sperm and most commonly found in K-Beauty. Of course, on social media, PDRN has an obvious shock value to it, which has led to an onslaught of posts in which lines like, "I just got salmon sperm injected into my face," provide perfect hooks to start videos. In this week's episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, co-host Sara Spruch-Feiner explores what PDRN is, what it purports to do for the skin, how it got so popular and how it is expanding beyond Korean beauty. To explore the topic, Spruch-Feiner speaks with New York City-based dermatologist Dr. David Kim; the former editor-in-chief of Allure magazine and fractional CMO for K-Beauty distributor Landing International, Michelle Lee; and the founder of Rodial, Maria Hatzistefanis.

L’Oréal Paris is betting on “The Devil Wears Prada 2” through an official partnership that spans TV ads, OOH advertising, social campaigns, consumer eventing and product placement in the film. L’Oréal officially announced the partnership in March through a commercial that debuted during the Oscars, which drew more than 17 million viewers this year. “It was a huge, huge success and [created] huge buzz,” Branik said. “We also dropped it on social [media] that night, and we had more than 7 billion impressions in one night.” The commercial starred L’Oréal Paris spokespeople Kendall Jenner and Simone Ashley, set in the movie’s fictional “Runway” magazine offices. Similar commercials were released in the subsequent weeks starring L’Oréal spokesperson Isabella Rossellini and actress Pauline Chalamet, who joined the franchise for the sequel alongside Ashley. “It’s the first time we’re doing something so big,” Branik said. “We have done product integrations before, but this is a whole new level for us.” Branik sat down with podcast host Lexy Lebsack to walk through all of the details of the campaign, ways its success may lead to similar investments for L’Oréal Groupe and best practices for navigating product placement. Read Glossy Beauty's coverage: Exclusive: Swan Beauty CEO on the @acquiredstyle bachelorette party that broke the internet

Indie Lee launched her namesake beauty brand — a pioneer of the "clean" beauty movement — in 2010. Now owned by parent company American Exchange, the brand is embarking on a new chapter: a diffusion line, Indie Lee Botanicals, which launched at Whole Foods in February. The range launched with a tight edit including a cleanser, toning mist, serum and moisturizer, each priced $20-$25. On this week's episode of The Glossy Beauty Podcast, Lee joins co-host Sara Spruch-Feiner to explore why now was the right time to launch a lower-priced line, how she approached maintaining efficacy while cutting costs, and how this diffusion brand will grow and shape her core collection's future. The conversation also dives into how shifting consumer behavior, whether driven by economic pressure or interest in ingredient safety, is reshaping how and where people shop for beauty products.

As the beauty industry moves past the direct-to-consumer boom of the 2010s, some of its most influential brands are being forced to redefine what success looks like. One of the most closely watched is Glossier, which recently appointed a new CEO, Colin Walsh, who joined from Ouai.  On this week’s episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, co-host Sara Spruch-Feiner is joined by senior beauty reporter Emily Jensen to discuss the staple millennial brand — which famously helped pioneer the modern "clean girl" aesthetic — and what its next chapter may hold.  In recent months, the company has undergone several changes. Since Walsh’s appointment, they've included layoffs affecting roughly a third of its workforce, a pullback on physical retail, and a renewed focus on hero products and fragrance, a category now driving significant growth. Headlines about the brand have often forecasted inevitable doom, but this episode explores Glossier’s current moment beyond a foregone conclusion, examining what it takes for a beauty brand to achieve longevity in an increasingly crowded market, the balance between newness and attention paid to hero products, and the challenge of maintaining relevance across generations.

As beauty and wellness industry insiders are well aware, the supplement space has exploded in size and scope over the past decade.  Stiff competition has driven new ways for brands, retailers and adjacent tech companies to stand out, from third-party certification to award programs, and more recently, the advent of AI-powered wellness chatbots. Last year, Thorne became a first-mover with the launch of Taia, a first-of-its-kind generative AI advisor that lives on Thorne’s homepage. “In the first six months, [Taia has fielded] over 200,000 messages and more than 350,000 product and lifestyle recommendations,” said Nathan Price, PhD., chief science officer of Thorne. “We get about 8% higher average order value for those who use Taia versus those who just visit Thorne’s [website].”  Thorne is a supplement category leader launched in 1984 and acquired by L Catterton equity group in 2023 for approximately $680 million. The brand has more than 300 SKUs but no hero product, which is one reason Taia exists. “My primary thesis is that the No. 1 thing we can do to help Thorne as a company is to help the Thorne customer,” Dr. Price said. “If Taia and personalization can meaningfully make it so that the person gets the health outcome they were looking for, we think [Taia is] going to have a very big ROI.”  Dr. Price oversaw the creation of Taia, which is trained on Thorne’s internal knowledge database, powered by a team of researchers and doctors, and AI foundational knowledge of health and wellness. For example, Taia can provide insights into common queries around things like gut health, itchy skin or exhaustion. It then provides personalized supplement recommendations, and lifestyle and nutrition tips, and helps users locate informational blog posts or product information on Thorne’s site.  While the practical uses of Taia are somewhat obvious, Dr. Price is also a thought leader on the future of AI-powered health and wellness. He believes that every wellness brand should begin investing now or be left in the dust in the next two years.  “It's like deciding not to have a website and be plugged into the Internet when that started becoming a thing in the late 90s,” Dr. Price told Glossy. “It’s absolutely table stakes [because] this is how most people are getting information, and in the future, it's going to radically [increase].”  Dr. Price’s career sits at the forefront of where longevity and healthspan research intersects with evolving technologies like AI and AI companions.  He is the author of the 2023 bestselling book “The Age of Scientific Wellness,” has published over 200 scientific papers, and is a professor and co-director of the Center for Human Healthspan at the Buck Institute for Research on Aging, a California-based research institute focused solely on aging. He’s also been the CSO at Thorne for more than four years. In today’s episode, Dr. Price sat down with host Lexy Lebsack to break down the strategy, implementation and future of generative wellness chatbots like Taia, as well as big picture thoughts on the future of AI and wellness, and how brands must future-proof their businesses in the fast-moving AI revolution.