Estée Lauder VP Chloe Green-Vamos talks data, AI and reverse mentorship

Green-Vamos represents a new kind of executive role at a company like Estée Lauder — one that heavily relies upon collecting and understanding all types of new and emerging digital and consumer data, as well as the newest forms of media, technology and social media.

On the latest episode of the Glossy Beauty Podcast, Green-Vamos discusses how she betters the company using AI, including a custom AI-powered tool made by Microsoft, and how social listening is driving innovation at ELC. She also breaks down Estée Lauder Companies’ reverse mentorship program, which pairs an executive with a Gen-Z or millennial staffer to help the execs better understand new ways young shoppers think about and use technology.

Below are highlights from the episode, which have been lightly edited for clarity.

How Estée Lauder integrates AI into its business
“AI is a critical focus area for us. We’ve been investing in the space for some time now, and we see it as a key tool across multiple fronts. Where it’s really helping us is on speed. Speed to insights — we want that feedback loop of learnings to become even faster, and we want to launch products faster, and this allows us to do so. We’re using an end-to-end approach to AI. On the insights front, we’ve partnered with Microsoft to build a trend-sensing organ that we use to comb through the market for buzzwords that then link to our internal product portfolio. We have an internal regenerative AI that matches our portfolio with buzzy trends that are out in the market. This is something that our marketers have at their fingertips. Most recently, it’s been helpful for us to jump on the Brat Summer train. We have a number of skin-care trends we’ve been able to link with our existing products. We’ve also have AI helping us launch new products, and that’s through multiple means. We’re using AI for formulation to actually predict the efficacy of actives and ingredients. We use historical data models on ingredients to predict the efficacy of how ingredients interact with each other and how efficacious it’ll be on the skin, which has been an amazing tool for us. We’re also using it for safety and stability. Whenever we create a new product, we can create an AI simulation of the product and its attributes and see if it’ll pass all the tests that we need it to in order to launch. This is something that’s taking a 6 months process down to days. It’s giving us that feedback loop faster, allowing our formulators and marketers the time to innovate creatively instead of being focused on some of the more administrative types of processes. The value is huge for us in the time that it’s allowing us to speed up our processes.”

Estée Lauder’s reverse mentorship program
“This program is amazing because it pairs together executive leaders, including the CEO, with reverse mentors, oftentimes Gen Z or millennials. They tackle some of the biggest questions and opportunities in the company. Most recently, Carl Haney, our chief product and innovation officer, his reverse mentor trained him on AI. We had an informative session — there was a live training — we used AI to create a new brand and to ideate and brainstorm. All of our executive leaders have reverse mentors. It’s a great opportunity for everyone to learn, and it puts into perspective the consumer and how the consumer is changing and acknowledging the different perspectives in the company. We’ve seen some amazing ideas come out of these reverse mentor projects. We’ve done trend workshops, and many brands have had product launches that were born out of these revser mentor brainstorming sessions. It’s a great internal panel and learning source. It’s also a big differentiator for our company.”