Hello and welcome to Glossy’s new Beauty Briefing. Beginning this week, we are splitting our member-exclusive beauty and wellness coverage into two separate briefings. Our Beauty Briefing will continue to deliver a snapshot of the week’s need-to-know beauty business trends and news, including noteworthy executive moves, brand and store launches, and more. And, on Wednesdays, look for the new weekly Wellness Briefing by our West Coast correspondent, Lexy Lebsack, featuring all the latest from the wellness sector.
This week, I checked in on new AI shopping initiatives and what they mean for beauty retail. Additionally, Sol de Janeiro welcomes a new CMO, and Amouage invests in the U.S. market with a New York flagship.
How Meta, Amazon and OpenAI are boosting AI shopping ahead of the holiday season
On Friday, Instagram users received a notification — not from friends or followers, but from Meta directly. The tech giant and Facebook and Instagram owner alerted users to changes to its privacy policy effective December 16. With those changes, Meta will begin using users’ interactions with AI to personalize the experiences and ads they see on the social media platform.
But Meta has already been using AI to help brand partners close sales throughout the year. Speaking at Meta’s Beauty Summit on Thursday, Ogee CMO and co-founder Alex Stark told Glossy that his brand is already using Meta’s AI tools to personalize calls to action on Instagram ads and assist shoppers on its own website.
“For beauty, people have a really hard time picking which color. But we have every tool — we have a shade-finder quiz, and we have all the VR photo things. And by having that [AI] agent on the side talking to people who want to be guided through, it can say, ‘Do you want to add this to your cart?’ and it helps close the loop,” said Stark. “We’re really excited for the holiday season, specifically because people have a hard enough time buying something for themselves, let alone buying something for someone else. To come to our site, where we can help guide them on what to buy for their mom or fiancé, for example, [AI tools] are gonna be a big help.”
Meta is far from the only tech giant to invest in rolling out AI-powered shopping tools in 2025. Most recently, OpenAI announced a partnership with Walmart in October to allow ChatGPT users to shop Walmart products in the chat window, a follow-up to its similar partnership with Etsy and a precursor to its upcoming integration with Shopify. On Thursday, Amazon unveiled its “Help me Decide” feature, which uses AI to analyze shoppers’ browsing history to recommend products.
Just how successful those new tools will be in converting shoppers, particularly ahead of a critical holiday shopping season, remains to be seen.
“We’re very early days. I saw a post on [Ad Week] where somebody wrote that this will be the first holiday season with agentic AI strategy,” said Jeff MacDonald, director of innovation and technology at Movers + Shakers, which has worked with the likes of E.l.f. and Netflix on social-first campaigns. “What’s been very interesting to me has been how the platforms are kind of just throwing everything up on the wall and seeing what sticks.”
Throughout 2025, MacDonald said, AI platforms have evolved from focusing on providing inspiration and research to investing in agentic shopping features, where AI can make purchases on consumers’ behalf. And while he advises brands to consider how their websites and products show up on AI-driven search engines like ChatGPT, that doesn’t mean consumers are already using those platforms to do their shopping. Some consumers are still resistant to AI creeping into their online interactions: According to Mintel’s 2026 Global Beauty & Personal Care Predictions report, 86% of U.S. consumers say big tech companies should make it simple for consumers to disable AI features.
“I don’t know if the [consumer] behavior is there yet,” he said. “Let’s take a look at what the patterns tell us this shopping season. Like, are people actually going and making purchases via ChatGPT? I don’t know yet.”
But even if this year’s results are a testing ground for AI-driven shopping, it could well be common practice by 2026’s holiday season.
“I think it is going to be one of those things where you wake up a couple months down the road, and suddenly, ChatGPT is directly making recommendations, and they’re going to have a ‘buy now’ button, and the friction is going to get so much less because they’re tracking every single thing about you,” said Jason Weilenmann, svp of marketplace performance at e-commerce strategy group Front Row. “Whether it’s Amazon, Walmart or Sephora, what those brands end up truly caring about is placing products in front of people that are going to have the highest consumer resonance. And at the end of the day, I do think that [AI tools offer] a better model.”
AI or otherwise, Meta’s head of beauty partnerships, Kristie Dash, believes the beauty industry has been adept at adopting new technologies early on. In addition to Ogee, brands like Beekman 1802 have been investing in AI to streamline their marketing tools.
“The way beauty content leans naturally led [the industry] to be a first mover in video,” said Dash. “One thing leads to the next, like beauty adopting video, and then from video, it’s jumping on trends a little bit quicker than maybe even the fashion industry.”
The tech giant is also experimenting with AI outside of strictly shopping capabilities. In September, Meta introduced Vibes, a new feed dedicated to AI videos available in the Meta AI app. In October, Meta announced it would lay off roughly 600 employees in its Superintelligence Labs, which includes AI-related infrastructure.
While much has been made of AI’s ability to replace jobs, Ogee CMO Alex Stark said the brand is still investing in its human resources — that is, in the form of creators.
“I don’t know what the future holds with AI-generated creators, but for Ogee, a huge part of businesses are these micro and macro creators,” he said. “We don’t want fake people in our ads.”
Executive moves:
- Glowbar promotes Alan Martin to chief operating officer. Martin was previously svp of operations and will be responsible for the facial studios’ nationwide expansion. Glowbar currently operates 22 locations throughout the Eastern United States.
- Elana Drell Szyfer is named the new president of Cosmetic Executive Women. Outgoing president Carlotta Jacobson will take on the role of executive chair. Drell Szyfer has been on CEW’s board of governors for 10 years and was most recently CEO of Revive Skincare.
- Jordan Saxemard joins Sol de Janeiro as chief marketing and digital officer. Saxemard was previously vp of marketing for Coty’s luxury division. He succeeds Tamera Ferro in the role.
News to know:
- Amouage opens a New York flagship. The new Soho boutique opens its doors as the Oman-based fragrance brand announced $300 million in sales in the third quarter of 2025, representing 73% growth. The 860-square-foot space was designed by Amouage’s chief creative officer, Renaud Salmon, and the Paris architectural studio Héroïne. The brand opened its first standalone store in the Americas in New Jersey’s American Dream mall in 2024.
- Advent International is reportedly exploring the sale of the French niche fragrance brand Parfums de Marly. The private equity firm acquired a majority stake in the perfume brand best known for bestsellers like Delina in 2023 and could now sell the brand for up to $2 billion.
- Laura Gellar returns to Sephora. The makeup brand targeting mature skin returned to Sephora’s online store on Monday. It was previously stocked at the beauty giant in 2006.
Stat of the week:
Global searches for polynucleotide injections are up 188%, according to the booking platform Fresha. Botox remains the top-searched for aesthetic treatment across the U.S., U.K., United Arab Emirates and Australia, according to the platform’s survey published on Monday. But more consumers are showing interest in “bio stimulators” like polynucleotides, which are made of fish fragments that mimic human DNA. The FDA has yet to approve polynucleotide injections in the U.S., but celebrities like Charli XCX have promoted the injectables as an alternative to filler treatments in recent months.
In the headlines:
What’s that smell? 11 new fragrance stores open in New York. Boob jobs are shrinking. The case for strip malls, the antidote to shiny, soulless city luxury.
Listen in:
Helen Steed, Glossier veteran and founder of Steed & Friends, gives an inside look at packaging strategies for Glossier, Merit and Rhode on the latest episode of the Glossy podcast. Listen in for insight into her work on products like Rhode’s iconic phone case, Glossier’s first foray into body care and Merit’s logo.
Need a Glossy recap?
How Oribe’s former GM is quietly growing a powerhouse brand with Isima. L’Oréal CEO talks Kering deal, dismisses fragrance slowdown, reports 3.4% sales jump. Despite strong results in beauty in the first quarter, P&G will eliminate thousands of jobs. The smoothie (and bowl and coffee) collab has caught on far beyond Erewhon. With backing from Glossier and Pharrell Williams, The Renatural aims to reinvigorate the wig sector. Should perfume bottles be smaller?
