“80% of search results for beautiful skin, face, woman don’t include women of color.”
Olay decoded this algorithmic bias to change the statistic for the future.
The Olay Skin Advisor was the first deep learning application to disrupt the beauty industry. A web-based experience that uses selfies and customer concerns to recommend a personalized skin care regimen. The AI powered consultation tool gives a skin age estimate based on a single selfie in just a couple of steps.
The selfie is compared to thousands of images to arrive at a recommendation. Therein lies the challenge. The beauty industry is rooted in coded bias. Realizing the opportunity at hand, Olay conducted an audit of its tool to understand how data, computer code and #AI reinforce narrow beauty standards that exclude women of colour. The audit identified points of bias- age and skin type bias. It recommended steps for remediation.
They also took steps to diversify “who” is coding to ensure that we are creating a new future that is more digitally representative of all.
Beauty is AI deep.
Liji Thomas 
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