AI Is Turning the Selfie Into a Skincare Tool

AI is turning selfies into a fundamental part of skincare, extrapolating from a passport-like headshot a series of scores, from wrinkles and pores to translucency and pigmentation, then turning that information into a personalized skincare regimen.

Haut.AI is among the companies pushing that technology forward. Through its skin-analysis platform, users answer a brief questionnaire that can include their age, daily sun exposure and allergies. From there, the technology guides the user through taking a selfie, using a positioning template to properly frame the face. Once the photo is taken, the AI goes to work.

Within moments, the face that stares back from the phone becomes a collection of data points. The technology can assess characteristics including wrinkles, pores, acne, pigmentation, redness, skin uniformity, translucency, hydration, sagging and the condition of the area around the eyes.

But the scores are only part of the experience. Haut.AI also explains what it is looking for and how it arrives at its assessments. Its technology uses computer vision and image analysis to identify visible skin characteristics that might otherwise require a trained eye and an in-person examination. More sophisticated imaging techniques, including multispectral analysis when supported by the imaging system, can reveal information that is not readily apparent in a conventional photograph.

Haut.AI describes the objective as providing “superhuman performance of skin analysis.” The company counts retailers, brands and clinics among its clients and partners and also has similar tools for hair and skin throughout the body. Haut.AI says it has 80 global partnerships and serves organizations in 32 markets. Its website identifies companies including Neutrogena, Beiersdorf, Ulta Beauty, Grupo Boticário, NAOS and Evonik among organizations using its technology.

The company, based in Estonia, was founded in 2018 and began working with generative AI in 2021. Its entire AI ecosystem runs on Microsoft Cloud. Haut.AI says its technology can remove identifying features from facial images, helping ensure privacy without compromising the accuracy of the skin analysis.

The technology can use information about a person’s skin, combined with information the user provides, to offer recommendations involving skincare habits and products. Depending on the application, those recommendations can extend to lifestyle factors, including nutrition, exercise and sun exposure. The result is an experience designed to feel like receiving a consultation.

For the multibillion-dollar beauty industry, that distinction has enormous commercial implications.

Beauty companies have historically sold products according to broad categories: dry skin, oily skin, aging skin, sensitive skin. Consumers largely had to determine for themselves which category described them and then navigate shelves, advertisements and online reviews in search of the right moisturizer, cleanser or serum.

AI potentially changes that relationship. Instead of asking consumers to choose among dozens of products and hope for the best, a brand can first analyze the consumer’s skin and then recommend products intended to address what the software has identified.

That makes skin analysis not only a consumer tool but also a potentially powerful sales engine.

Haut.AI’s technology is designed to be integrated into the digital platforms of beauty and skincare companies, allowing brands to offer personalized analysis without requiring customers to visit a dermatologist’s office, cosmetics counter or spa. A person can stand in a bathroom, hold up a phone and begin the process.

And Haut.AI is hardly alone in recognizing the possibilities.

L’Oréal has also invested heavily in AI-driven beauty technology. Its Skin Genius experience similarly uses AI and facial imaging to assess skin characteristics from a photograph and guide consumers toward products suited to their perceived needs. The concept reflects a broader shift across the cosmetics industry toward personalization, where the goal is no longer simply to sell someone a moisturizer but to provide a technological reason for why that particular moisturizer may be appropriate.

These systems are cosmetic skin-analysis tools, not replacements for dermatologists, and an algorithm examining a selfie should not be confused with a medical diagnosis. Suspicious moles, lesions, persistent rashes and other medical concerns still belong in the hands of qualified health professionals.

Haut.AI includes a “Your Skin Status” tracking function that allows users to follow changes over time. That potentially turns skincare from a subjective exercise into something that can be monitored through repeated images and scores.

Anastasia Georgievskaya, the founder and CEO of Haut.AI, has a background in biophysics and bioengineering and said the original intent was to develop software for retail and clinical studies. Her company worked for about three years inside various skincare testing facilities. She said one of the things that motivated her early on was the realization that clinical studies showed skincare can be greatly improved, but there was a disconnect between such data and the consumer.

“It’s driven by marketing. I think that’s absolutely unfair because skincare is working,” Georgievskaya said. “The consumers really don’t understand their skin, and then they come into shops, they come into physical stores and they get lost. They get something that’s not working for their skin, and it’s a bad situation for everyone.

“Consumers are not finding the right products. Brands are not able to reach the right audience or market their products properly. Why don’t we take AI and put it on this task of finding the perfect beauty products for consumers that will benefit both consumers and brands? So this is how we started out.”