CEO of L’Oreal Group Nicolas Hieronimus at Davos in 2025. Anadolu via Getty Images

More than a century after chemist Eugène Schueller turned a hair-dye formula into the business that became L’Oréal, the beauty giant is still finding new ways to grow, with A.I. as its latest bet.

L’Oréal’s Revenue rose 6.3 percent on a like-for-like basis, a key retail metric, to €11.6 billion ($13.2 billion) in the April-June quarter. For the first half of 2026, revenue increased 5.8 percent to €23.78 billion ($27.1 billion), while net profit climbed 4.7 percent to €3.96 billion ($4.5 billion) and the operating margin reached 21.3 percent. Growth extended across every region and division, from Maybelline’s mass-market makeup to La Roche-Posay’s dermatological skincare and Kérastase’s salon-grade haircare.

CEO Nicolas Hieronimus credited that performance to e-commerce and L’Oréal’s innovation strategy, which now includes a partnership with OpenAI announced in June. “Our innovation engine is firing on all cylinders—and A.I. will help it maintain its pace,” he said in a statement accompanying the results.

Few investors have more riding on that momentum than Schueller’s descendants. His granddaughter, Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, and her family own 34.79 percent of L’Oréal, making them the company’s largest shareholder. L’Oréal shares rose 3.6 percent to €397.15 in Thursday trading, adding roughly €2.5 billion ($2.9 billion) to the market value of the family’s stake. Forbes currently estimates the family’s collective fortune at $95.6 billion.

Francoise Bettencourt Meyers and her husband, Jean-Pierre Meyers, in 2019. Rindoff Petroff/Viteur/Getty Images

L’Oréal is turning ChatGPT into a beauty counter

L’Oréal’s e-commerce sales jumped 18 percent to €7.4 billion ($8.5 billion) during the first half of the year, almost twice the growth rate of the online beauty market, according to the company. L’Oréal now sees chatbots as a potential next storefront.

On the earnings call, Hieronimus said younger consumers are “shifting massively” toward large language models for product questions and described beauty as one of the most conversational categories. L’Oréal’s brand recognition, scientific data and professional endorsements could help its products surface in A.I.-generated recommendations, he argued, although the channel remains a “moving target.”

The shift could be lucrative well beyond L’Oréal. McKinsey estimated last year that generative A.I. could create $9 billion to $10 billion in annual value across the beauty industry, with marketing and sales among the largest opportunities.

At VivaTech in Paris in June, L’Oréal outlined a two-pronged collaboration with OpenAI: turning ChatGPT into an interactive beauty assistant while putting its models to work behind the scenes.

On the consumer side, Maybelline plans to bring its virtual makeup try-on into ChatGPT this summer using ModiFace, the augmented-reality company L’Oréal acquired in 2018. L’Oréal is also working with OpenAI to improve how brands, including Lancôme and Kérastase, surface in U.S. ChatGPT conversations. Meanwhile, SkinCeuticals, CeraVe and Garnier are participating in the platform’s advertising pilot, which began in the U.S. in February and has since expanded to multiple international markets.

The partnership does not stop at the digital beauty counter. L’Oréal says its researchers are using GPT-Rosalind, OpenAI’s life-sciences model, to map the skin microbiome and identify beneficial bacteria that could inform future skincare products, starting with La Roche-Posay. OpenAI’s technology will also be integrated into CreAItech, L’Oréal’s internal platform for creating on-brand images, videos and other assets. Hieronimus said the system now produces more than 500,000 pieces of content each month for social platforms.

The A.I. push also extends across L’Oréal’s workforce. The company says 73,000 employees have completed generative A.I. training. In an October internal survey of 4,700 L’OréalGPT users, half said the assistant saved them more than an hour each week.

L’Oréal is not alone in courting shoppers through A.I. assistants. LVMH-owned Sephora launched a U.S. ChatGPT app in March, offering tailored recommendations. Ulta Beauty followed in April with a Google partnership that makes its assortment shoppable through Gemini and A.I. Mode in Search, including checkout for some purchases.

Beauty’s feel-good effect keeps sales growing

Technology may shape how L’Oréal grows next, but its current momentum still rests on a familiar consumer impulse: the desire for indulgence, especially during stressful times.

“The grimmer the economic and geopolitical headline, the more consumers crave an affordable feel-good treat,” Hieronimus said, describing what he calls the “dopamine effect of beauty.”

Haircare and fragrance—two categories that span both mass and prestige—were the fastest-growing segments, up 15.6 percent and 10.3 percent in the first half, respectively. Fragrance also helped L’Oréal Luxe—home to Lancôme, Yves Saint Laurent Beauté and Giorgio Armani Beauty—grow 5.1 percent, nearly twice as quickly as the wider prestige-beauty market, the company said. In contrast, LVMH’s Perfumes & Cosmetics business was flat organically over the same period.

Meanwhile, L’Oréal is widening its luxury offerings through a €4 billion alliance with French luxury giant Kering. The deal, completed in March, added fragrance house Creed into L’Oréal’s portfolio and secured long-term beauty licenses for Kering-owned Bottega Veneta and Balenciaga. Pending regulatory approval, L’Oréal will also take over Kering-owned Gucci Beauty in July 2027, one year earlier than planned. The company hopes to turn Gucci into a multibillion-euro beauty brand, with its first new products expected as early as 2028. 

Jean-Victor Meyers attends the Opening Season Ballet Gala at Opera Garnier on September 27, 2025 in Paris, France. Getty Images

The Bettencourt Meyers family’s generational handoff

That breadth—from Maybelline and CeraVe to Prada and Gucci—is what has made L’Oréal such an enduring asset for the Bettencourt Meyers family.

Schueller founded the company in 1909 around a hair-dye formula sold to Parisian salons. After his death in 1957, his stake passed to his only child, Liliane Bettencourt, and then to her only daughter, Françoise Bettencourt Meyers, after Liliane Bettencourt’s death in 2017.

The famously low-profile family exercises its influence more subtly than some of Europe’s other luxury dynasties, channeling its power through ownership, board seats and Téthys, its holding company.

That structure underwent a handoff last spring, when Bettencourt Meyers left L’Oréal’s board after 28 years. Her elder son, Jean-Victor Meyers, succeeded her as vice-chairman, while her younger son, Nicolas Meyers, remained a director. Both also sit on the supervisory boards of Téthys and its investment arm, Téthys Invest. Bettencourt Meyers continues to chair Téthys, while her husband, Jean-Pierre Meyers, serves as CEO, according to its website.

The arrangement preserves the family’s influence while leaving day-to-day operations to professional managers. It also leaves Schueller’s great-grandsons firmly in place as L’Oréal pursues its next generation of consumers.