How beauty giant Estee Lauder’s top technologist is betting on ‘AI everywhere’ to fuel its turnaround

For the past 18 months, Brian Franz has overseen all data, technology, and analytics at Estee Lauder, the first-ever C-suite leader to fill that role at the beauty giant. As of Tuesday, his role promises to be even more transformative.

This week, the M.A.C and Clinique purveyor, which ranks No. 315 on the Fortune 500, announced Franz has been appointed to the newly expanded role of chief technology and transformation officer, where he will continue to oversee the global IT team, further integrate partnerships with Shopify and Accenture, promote more internal and external use of artificial intelligence, and be tasked with leading enterprise-wide initiatives focused on supporting revenue growth and improving productivity.

“We have amazing brands and really great history, insights, and data for 80-plus years now,” says Franz, who previously served as CIO at financial-services firm State Street, liquor maker Diageo, and food behemoth PepsiCo. “But, we had to really position ourselves for where we need to be in the future.” 

What that has meant for Franz is ensuring that all 14,000 of Estee Lauder’s employees have broad access to AI productivity tools including Microsoft Copilot and ChatGPT, while also investing in more narrow AI use cases to speed up formulations and improve efficiencies at the company’s manufacturing facilities. AI is also changing how millions of consumers shop for beauty brands on chatbots like Gemini and Claude, further complicating and accelerating a discovery process that’s already been upended by TikTok, Instagram, and other social media platforms.

Transformation has been a key theme at Estee Lauder, which only two years ago was facing weaker demand for cosmetics and fragrances and facing criticism that the company hadn’t pivoted speedily enough to the digital world that has driven consumer purchase patterns. Stephane de La Faverie, a 14-year Estee Lauder veteran, was hired to serve as its new CEO to formulate and execute a turnaround plan called “Beauty Reimagined.”

Beyond vowing to increase advertising spending and remove complexity in how Estee Lauder’s teams work, de La Faverie also lured in new talent for his C-suite, including hiring Franz from State Street and Nestlé alum Aude Gandon, who serves as chief digital and marketing officer. Fiscal fourth-quarter results from Estee Lauder in August have shown these efforts are beginning to pay off: strong demand for luxury fragrances and skincare drove results above Wall Street’s expectations and Estee Lauder’s annual profit forecast for the current year also had positive upside.

Franz says his mandate will include all technology efforts that can improve product formulation, better forecast demand, smooth operations at the manufacturing plants, and boost worker productivity. All of these investments are intended to support his three key priorities: creating an omnichannel shopping experience that’s as frictionless as possible, unifying disparate sources of data across a decades-old organization, and adding a dash of “AI everywhere” for buyers and employees.

“The running and operations of technology every day has to get more and more productive,” says Franz. “And then, we have to shift as much of the investment into these consumer-facing, revenue-enhancing, or margin-expansion activities.”

His AI bets have included working alongside Google Cloud to launch a consumer-facing, AI-enabled scent advisor for Estee Lauder’s Jo Malone London brand, working closely with software provider Adobe to use more........

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