For decades, beauty has been defined by expertise delivered face-to-face by an advisor who could read a customer’s needs, interpret cultural cues, and offer the kind of guidance that turned shopping into ritual. The question has always been how to translate that intimacy into the digital sphere without reducing it to automation. Chalhoub Group, together with FACES, believes it has found the answer.
Meet Layla AI, the Middle East’s first large-scale generative AI beauty coach. Developed in-house by Chalhoub Group and powered by 70 years of regional expertise, Layla is designed to replicate the warmth of an in-store consultant online. She speaks Arabic dialects and Arabizi with fluency, adapts to customer habits, and offers hyper-personalised recommendations across skincare, makeup, fragrance, and haircare. This is not a chatbot; it is a system built to learn, evolve, and connect.
Chalhoub Group’s decision to build Layla AI in partnership with FACES is as much about legacy as it is about innovation. The Group has shaped the region’s luxury market for more than seven decades, while FACES has been the Middle East’s most trusted beauty retailer for over 30 years. Together, they are now using technology to extend their shared values of cultural fluency, customer trust, and expertise into the digital realm.
The results are already measurable. Shoppers interacting with Layla spend 7.4 minutes longer per session, explore 27% more products, and convert at 2.5 times the rate of non-AI sessions. Nearly 80% of conversations take place in Arabic, proof that linguistic and cultural relevance remains central to digital engagement in the region.
Historically, the role of the beauty consultant has always gone beyond selling—it has been about interpretation. A trained advisor could anticipate seasonal preferences, decode undertones, and even guide identity through the language of fragrance and makeup. Layla AI takes that role into the digital era.
Nicole Nitschke, Managing Director at FACES, puts it succinctly: “Layla AI embodies our vision of the future of beauty. It’s smarter, more human, and deeply personal.” This dual emphasis—humanity and intelligence—distinguishes Layla from conventional online tools. She operates less as a search engine and more as a personal coach, translating a long-standing in-store ritual into a digital experience.
Beyond customer experience, Layla functions as a business intelligence engine. Every conversation generates real-time insights into shifting preferences and unmet needs. For Chalhoub, this data informs assortment, pricing, and campaign decisions, effectively merging retail intimacy with analytical precision. In an industry where understanding consumer behavior is as valuable as the products themselves, this is a critical shift.
Chalhoub Group’s ambitions for Layla extend well beyond product recommendations. Upcoming features include skin diagnostics, virtual try-ons, gamified experiences, and seamless omnichannel integration. These innovations are not framed as add-ons but as part of a larger roadmap toward conversational commerce.
As Nick Vinckier, VP of Corporate Innovation at Chalhoub Group, notes: “This project proves that advanced AI innovation can originate from the Middle East at scale.” In a global retail landscape often dominated by Western and East Asian tech models, Layla represents a homegrown innovation that speaks directly to the region’s cultural and linguistic realities.
Skeptics may question whether AI can ever fully capture the nuance of human intuition, or whether digital intimacy risks feeling manufactured. But what makes Layla significant is not that she replaces human consultants, but that she extends their reach. Layla AI is therefore a marker of where the Middle East’s beauty industry is heading–toward a future in which personalization, data, and cultural fluency converge. In that sense, her launch is both a technological leap and a cultural statement, reframing the conversation around what luxury service can mean in the digital age.
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