A livestreaming session promoting cosmetic products at a digital retailer’s studio in Shanghai | Bloomberg
BLOOMBERG
Jul 28, 2026
Shortly before China’s Singles’ Day shopping festival last fall, beauty company Yatsen Holding launched a new serum featuring PDRN, one of skincare’s hottest regenerative ingredients.
What shoppers didn’t see was how quickly it reached shelves. Yatsen used artificial intelligence to compress a development cycle that typically takes more than two years into just six months, including helping researchers narrow more than 50 ingredient candidates to three in a single week.
AI is rapidly reshaping China’s beauty industry by shrinking every stage of product development. Local companies are using it to sift through millions of social media posts for emerging trends, discover new cosmetic ingredients with biotechnology partners and bring products to market in months, rather than years.
In a time of both misinformation and too much information,
quality journalism is more crucial than ever.
By subscribing, you can help us get the story right.
SUBSCRIBE NOW
