Copyright © HT Digital Streams Limited All rights reserved. Isabelle Bousquette, The Wall Street Journal 4 min read Dec 2, 2025, 17:53 IST Estée Lauder first built an AI chatbot on its Jo Malone site in October. Since then, online shoppers who used the tool made purchases at nearly double the rate of those who didn’t, the company said. Summary A new AI bot at the beauty company’s Jo Malone unit seems to have bridged a digital divide: getting people to buy perfume without even smelling it. The AI ​​chatbot Estée Lauder Companies built for its Jo Malone London fragrance brand has a uniquely difficult task. In contrast to the current barrage of agent stylists and buyers tasked with choosing outfits and looking for deals, the “AI Scent Advisor” should turn everyday language into the intangible and totally non-digital experience of smell. The result is a chatbot with a fluttering, poetic tone. “Where do we want to travel today?” It asked during one session. “The freshness of an orchard? The warmth of a blooming flower garden? The windswept allure of the coastline?” The goal is to convince online shoppers to spend north of $100 on a fragrance suggested by a chatbot conversation filled with ethereal adjectives and descriptions of the English countryside. View Full Image Brian Franz, Estée Lauder’s Chief Technology, Data & Analytics Officer “If I would have said to people a year ago, ‘Can we use AI to help you with fragrance?’ they’d be like, ‘Well, you can’t smell your iPad,'” says Brian Franz, chief technology, data and analytics officer at Estée Lauder, which includes brands like MAC and Bobbi Brown. To make this happen, the firm turned to Google Cloud, which sent a handful of AI engineers armed with Gemini models to spend a day sniffing floral musk, then managed to crack the code. Since a soft launch began on Jo Malone in October, online shoppers who used the tool made purchases at nearly double the rate of those who didn’t, helping Estée Lauder achieve that rare unicorn in generative AI: a tool that actually drives top-line growth. Estée Lauder’s share price has fallen in recent years, hurt in part by a pullback in spending by Chinese consumers, although it has risen more than 25% since Chief Executive Stéphane de La Faverie took the helm in January. The company has also been slow to embrace online retail, a mistake de La Faverie hopes to correct with a new digital push. In April, he appointed Franz to the company’s first-ever position as chief technology, data and analytics officer. Franz came from State Street where he most recently served as executive vice president, global chief information officer and head of enterprise resilience. In a recent filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, the company said restructuring efforts, which include consolidating service providers and pursuing a net reduction in workforce, cost $1.14 billion. De La Faverie said he is betting heavily on the fragrance category, which has become increasingly popular with younger consumers, and the digital opportunities there. In October, Estée Lauder opened a Fragrance Atelier in Paris, with the aim of using advanced technology to help develop new fragrances. So how did Estée Lauder train its chatbot to talk fragrance? It started with an existing wealth of scent data. In perfumery today, a given scent can be based on any combination of seven primary odor categories (among them woody, amber, and “chypre”), and Estée Lauder also uses five newer categories (green, aromatic, musky, leathery, and gourmand) that correspond to real ingredients in the recipe. Then there is the less technical but equally relevant sensory experience that each perfume evokes: a pear orchard in autumn or a bucket of blackberries on a hot summer day. Google engineers ran the model with both, but then had to tackle the issue of capturing the right tone. Google’s Gemini models power a range of customer-facing experiences from Home Depot to Wendy’s. But choosing a signature flavor is more personal than ordering a Baconator. It was important that the Jo Malone bot had a voice that evoked real, in-store associates, the beauty company said. To get there, Google Cloud recorded and analyzed the way live fragrance stylists talk to customers, including a methodology known as TED, or “tell, explain, describe.” “When you can’t smell something, you have to be really evocative with language,” said Jose Gomes, vice president, retail and consumer goods at Google Cloud. That’s how the AI ​​advisor became so ethereal and philosophical, he added. The right associates love phrases like “journey” and “engagement.” Estée Lauder said it is still considering bringing a similar AI experience to its other fragrance brands, which include Kilian Paris, Frédéric Malle, Tom Ford Beauty and Le Labo. “If you put the consumer at the heart of this and you bring the technology, we’re really able to make a big difference in how the ELC companies perform,” Franz said. Write to Isabelle Bousquette at [email protected] Get all the Business News, Market News, Breaking News Events and Latest News Updates on Live Mint. Download the Mint News app to get daily market updates. more topics #artificial intelligence Read next story