Beyza Kapu, global ecom tech & data analytics director, L’Oréal believes the next transformation in commerce will not simply change how consumers shop online but that it will fundamentally change how humans make decisions.
Just as the invention of the internet, social and streaming changed consumer behavior, AI will change “the way people discover and consume content,” said Kapu during the Brand Innovators Entertainment Marketing Summit during the Cannes Film Festival.
“It’s the same story but with a different costume.”
“It changes who has the power and … the attention and how the new wealth is being distributed. It’s happening today in a much deeper level because this is not only about content and distribution anymore,” Kapu continued. “It’s about human making decision shift and that’s such a fundamental shift and once you understand this it’s not really no longer a commerce or marketing story it’s a human story.”
While many brands continue experimenting with generative AI as a productivity tool, L’Oréal is preparing for a world where AI systems increasingly act as intermediaries between brands and consumers.
According to Kapu, the transition is unfolding in layers. The first stage is what she described as “AI-assisted commerce,” where consumers remain in control but use AI tools to search, filter and evaluate products more efficiently. The second phase is “AI-mediated commerce,” where AI becomes the primary interface for discovery and recommendation. In that environment, consumers stop navigating between marketplaces and websites manually and instead rely on conversational systems that understand their preferences and curate options for them. The third layer is where commerce becomes “truly agentic,” she explained.
The implications are especially significant for beauty brands, where discovery has historically relied on retail placement, search, creator marketing and emotional storytelling.
Kapu argued that AI is already reshaping consumer behavior, particularly among younger audiences. She noted that conversational discovery is becoming increasingly natural for consumers overwhelmed by digital choice.
“Modern consumers are extremely overwhelmed,” she said. “There are too many choices, too much information, too many options. We don’t really want 500 different choices. We just want something fewer but more relevant, more refined.”
That behavioral shift is forcing brands to rethink not only advertising strategies but the underlying infrastructure of commerce itself.
In the traditional digital shelf model, visibility depended heavily on search rankings, paid media and retail execution. But in AI-mediated environments, brands must also optimize for machine interpretation.
“If your signals are not consistent all around the web, then actually AI loses confidence in you and doesn’t choose you and goes to the next option,” Kapu explained.
That shift is changing how L’Oréal organizes product information, ratings, metadata and digital ecosystems across markets. Kapu described the company’s challenge as one of orchestration – aligning content, data, technology and retail infrastructure in ways that make products both consumer-friendly and machine-readable.
“You have three audiences,” she said. “You have shopper still, you have search algorithm and you have machines.”
Unlike humans, she noted, AI systems evaluate products through structured consistency rather than emotional interpretation. Taxonomy, attribution, reviews and data formatting all become critical trust signals in recommendation environments.
At the same time, Kapu emphasized that AI has limitations, particularly in categories rooted in emotional and sensory experiences. Beauty is one of the categories where you see AI shines and where you see AI limitations very clearly, she said.
AI performs exceptionally well during what marketers often call the “messy middle” of the customer journey – moments where consumers feel overwhelmed by information or uncertain about where to begin. A new skincare user, for example, can receive personalized recommendations within minutes instead of spending hours researching products independently.
But Kapu argued that emotional validation, tactile experience and human trust still matter in beauty.
“When it comes to texture, when it comes to excitement of opening a good package, when it comes to scent, when it comes to putting the product on your skin, AI has certain limitations,” she said. “You need creators, you need influencers or at least another human being’s trusted voice.”
As brands embrace AI tools, trust becomes increasingly important. Kapu warned that AI platforms are rapidly becoming “power interfaces,” capable of shaping not just recommendations but broader consumer behavior.
For L’Oréal, preparing for that future means treating AI not as a short-term innovation trend but as a structural shift in human behavior.
The biggest mistake brands are making “is thinking this is a hype,” Kapu said. This is not a technology evolution. “It’s really the change in human beings, how we are thinking, how we are making decisions,” she said.
