Key Takeaways:
Gal Yosef, an Israeli-based tech entrepreneur, said that for nearly two decades he has suffered from Crohn’s, an inflammatory bowel disease that leads to abdominal pain, fatigue, vomiting, and a loss of appetite. To help manage his symptoms, Yosef has had to undergo multiple surgeries, which has led to some scarring.
To address the physical representation of the marks on his body left behind from surgery, Yosef said he wanted to explore plastic surgery. But he was initially apprehensive. “The main problem I was facing as a patient is that it’s a very intimidating process,” Yosef told BeautyMatter. “It is very challenging to know what provider to trust and understand the different treatment approaches.”
This experience led him to found Bliss Aesthetics, an AI start-up that announced a $17.5 million seed round in April, which will help the CEO expand his AI platform that connects patients and doctors. After answering a detailed questionnaire that covers medical history, budget, emotional readiness, and other factors, approved patients are allowed to upload photos of the body part they want to address with cosmetic surgery. The company's AI-powered visualization tool then offers 10 different possible visual outcomes and matches local medical providers whose style aligns with what the patient desires.
“Most are body procedures at the moment—a breast lift, breast augmentation, and tummy tuck,” said Yosef, who serves as CEO of Bliss Aesthetics.
On the flip side, Dr. William A. Kennedy III’s Aedit mobile app focuses completely on the face. Using a smartphone’s camera, the app’s underlying AI can create a 3D scan of the face and analyze 700 different points. The goal is to produce a more realistic expectation of surgical outcomes. “Every doctor’s an artist,” said Kennedy. “The benefit of the AI technology is that it is going to tell you, in general, what you can look like. Things like Instagram and TikTok give you unrealistic expectations.”
Bliss Aesthetics and Aedit are angling to leverage AI to upend how data influences an industry that conducts nearly 1.6 million cosmetic surgery procedures annually in the US market alone, according to data from the American Society of Plastic Surgeons.
It is also a fast-growing market, with consulting giant McKinsey reporting that the medical-aesthetics market in the US and Canada has consistently produced double-digit growth in recent years. Revenue for neuromodulators like Botox and dermal fillers like hyaluronic acid fillers has grown from under $3 billion in 2019 to a projection of more than $5 billion this year, according to McKinsey.
Plastic surgeons tell BeautyMatter that they are still in the very early stages of embracing AI, mostly utilizing generative AI to assist with office tasks, including scheduling, processing medical billing, customer service inquiries, and content creation to promote marketing for their services on social media or via email. Some surgeons are also using AI-enabled transcription tools to record notes during their sessions with patients, as well as AI visualization tools that can help educate patients on potential procedures.
“It’s going to be interesting to see how AI can collate outcomes and be able to find who is a good patient and who's not potentially a good candidate for different procedures,” said Dr. Samuel Lin, Associate Professor of Surgery at Harvard Medical School and Director of Aesthetic Surgery for Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, during an interview with BeautyMatter.
But all the health practitioners that spoke to BeautyMatter agreed that there were no major applications of AI in the surgical setting, at least not yet. “If you’re talking about AI for helping with surgical planning, or planning in general, it’s in its infancy,” Dr. Roy Kim, a plastic surgeon with offices in San Francisco and Beverly Hills, told BeautyMatter.
Kim also stressed that while AI can be a helpful tool to visualize a potential procedure, these conversations are best handled in a doctor’s office, not via a consumer-friendly mobile app.
“Plastic surgeons are trained to look out for BDD [body dysmorphic disorder], and we’re also looking to discuss with patients that this may not be possible for [them], or I can’t deliver those kinds of results,” said Kim.
AI plastic surgery apps have proliferated on mobile app stores, which could help expand the pool of potential patients, but also lead to unrealistic expectations. This isn’t new to the cosmetics industry, as older technologies like Adobe Photoshop have been used for years to manipulate images.
Online filters have led to trends that practitioners have called “TikTok face” or “Snapchat dysmorphia,” skewing beauty standards. It has also led to increased demand. Nearly 80% of facial plastic surgeons say that patients were seeking procedures to improve their appearance on videoconferencing, according to a 2021 study conducted by the American Academy of Facial Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The conversation really has to unwind the way that patients see themselves,” said Dr. Steven H. Williams, a member of the American Society of Plastic Surgeons. “They have a closer identity with that idealized version of themselves. That’s a harder thing to bring them back to reality.”
There’s also the risk of AI-generated misinformation, which is especially disturbing given how patients are flocking to TikTok and chatbots like ChatGPT to discover surgeon styles that may match their preferences. Los Angeles–based plastic and breast surgeon Dr. Babak Dadvand recently took to social media to warn that there was a deepfake version of him offering erroneous medical advice.
“Social has democratized info, but it’s also created swirl and misinformation and this feeling that it’s overwhelming to navigate,” said Minou Clark, CEO at RealSelf, an online platform that connects patients to verified practitioners. AI, Clark told BeautyMatter, can be a good aggregator for education if used to make more personalized recommendations that are based on authentic reviews and credentials.
Some surgeons are showing an increased willingness to embrace newer AI tools. Texas-based plastic surgeon Dr. Johnny Franco says his office relies on the AI voice generator ElevenLabs to generate marketing and education materials for his Spanish-speaking patients. Earlier this month, his office debuted the practice’s first-ever AI agent to reach out to prospective patients whose correspondence has lapsed. This agent, called Romeo, can book appointments and engage through text message or on the phone.
“I think that AI is going to be the great equalizer in aesthetics,” said Franco.
Dr. Kay Durairaj has also been an assertive adopter of AI technology. The Los Angeles–based plastic surgeon said that every one of her patients now has their face and skin analyzed by an AI-enabled scanning tool sold by Perfect Corp. Patient images are captured using an iPad or iPhone camera, then uploaded into Perfect’s software and used for consultation with a patient. Together, the patient and doctor can then play with the image on the screen, tweaking the features as they both see fit.
“I love data, and I think giving patients a scan of their face that shows a very accurate representation of their facial volume is very meaningful,” Durairaj told BeautyMatter.
Wayne Liu, Chief Growth Officer and President of the Americas business for Perfect, said the company uses 90,000 proprietary data sets to train AI models, as well as partnerships with 800 enterprise customers, including retailers like Sephora and Walmart. One forecasting feature of Perfect’s AI tools allows a doctor to show a patient how their skin could improve after several months of treatment. “Everything is visualized,” Liu told BeautyMatter.
Dr. Ron Shelton, a New York City–based cosmetic dermatologist, said he thinks the magic of AI will come when 3D imaging, which is already being used by the industry, can connect that data more seamlessly into the workflow for both noninvasive and surgical procedures. There are already some signs that this may be where medicine evolves in the future. Earlier this year, an AI-enabled surgical robot performed gallbladder surgeries on pig organs.
Shelton shared the example of a less-invasive procedure in which AI was used to guide a practitioner to more certain outcomes when using a microneedling pen across the face.
“It would be nice with artificial intelligence to assess a patient’s skin type and make recommendations based on data, as to what the most effective treatments are and what the risk factors are for that particular patient,” Shelton told BeautyMatter.