Key Takeaways:
With the demand for hyper-tailored guidance across skincare, makeup, fragrances, and haircare, the way Middle Eastern consumers discover, shop, and connect with their favorite products is changing by the minute. Currently valued at over $46 billion and expected to surpass $60 billion by 2026, the MENA beauty and personal care market is entering its next phase of growth—one in which customer intelligence, artificial intelligence, and data-led personalization are redefining the way consumers shop, discover, and engage with beauty and personal care.
Designed with a deep understanding of the Middle Eastern beauty consumer, Chalhoub Group (the Middle East’s largest luxury retail operator), and Faces, the group’s beauty retail arm, have created Layla AI to address the complexity and fragmentation customers often face when navigating beauty products online. Born from the promise of blending data-driven recommendations with the warmth and expertise of in-store beauty advisors, they have brought that same trusted, approachable experience into the digital world.
Layla also sits alongside Faces’ broader strategy of using AI to make beauty feel more personalized, educational, and tailored to pre-empt customers' needs. Through a recent partnership with Revieve, the retailer has simultaneously also launched an AI-powered skincare tool that delivers personalized skincare guidance. The partnership reflects Faces’ greater ambition to educate, recruit, and empower new skincare users across the region. While skincare products account for only 12%-14% of the total market in the Middle East, Faces is committed to growing this category through technology and personalized care. “Since launching the Revieve Skin Advisor, we’ve seen strong engagement across our digital platforms. More importantly, we’ve been able to offer intelligent, personalized guidance to customers who may have felt overwhelmed or under-informed about skincare. The technology supports both first-time shoppers and beauty-savvy users, making it a powerful addition to our omnichannel journey,” said Darine Sabbagh, General Manager, E-Commerce & Digital at Faces.
“At Faces, innovation is always in service to the customer, and these launches demonstrate how we’re combining technology, personalization, and expert curation to deepen our connection with every consumer we serve. In a market where skincare still holds untapped potential, we are reinforcing our leadership by helping unlock meaningful growth in the category through smarter, more relevant experiences,” said Nicole Nitschke, Managing Director at Faces.
“Customers in this region value personalized guidance, culturally relevant advice, and clear explanations of product benefits,” Jérémy Denisty, Director of AI at Chalhoub Group, told BeautyMatter. “Layla meets these expectations by communicating fluently in Arabic and multiple dialects, offering advice tailored to local beauty concerns such as pigmentation, sun exposure, and hydration.” As trust and transparency become the most valuable yet elusive currency in the beauty world, Layla aims to address growing concerns about product recommendations in a landscape where everyone seems a self-proclaimed expert and a new “must-have” product is launched every day. With a highly social-media-savvy consumer base (99% penetration in the UAE and 46% across other regional markets), many consumers discover new brands and products through their favorite influencers or creators.
Yet, these recommendations are often either driven by brand collaborations, trends, or individuals who lack expertise, owing to which consumers are increasingly seeking out credible, personalized beauty advice that particularly works for their skin type and their individual needs and concerns.
“The timing of Layla’s launch reflects both consumer evolution and regional readiness.
The Middle East beauty consumer is highly engaged, digital-first, and increasingly looking for personalized, culturally relevant experiences. At the same time, the beauty category has grown more complex, with new brands, trends, and routines emerging faster than ever,” said Nitschke.
For Faces, one of the region’s leaders in beauty retail, there couldn’t have been a better time to incubate an AI tool that marries the special human touch of a Faces in-store representative with technology. The launch comes at a time when the competitive landscape is heating up with international powerhouses like Ulta Beauty, Boots, Nykaa (Nysaa), and Watsons, and as Sephora Middle East continues to raise the bar through experiential retail and innovation to retain its majority market share.
Unlike traditional e-commerce algorithms that often push only bestsellers, Layla is a powerful tool for product discovery, helping customers explore new, local, and niche brands they probably otherwise wouldn’t have come across. By doing so, it helps consumers feel seen and understood. “This sets a new standard for personalized beauty in the Middle East, complementing Faces’ broader mission to educate, engage, and empower customers across all touch points,” said Nitschke. But while several beauty players across the globe play with the possibilities of AI to enhance the shopping experience, Layla is the first at-scale Generative AI beauty assistant built by a beauty retailer in the Middle East.
“No other global or regional beauty retailer has anything comparable, and what makes her truly unique is that she can communicate fluently across Arabic, Arabizi, and multiple Gulf dialects, including Saudi, Emirati, Kuwaiti, and Levantine variations. This level of localization is an unprecedented achievement for AI in beauty and a key contributor to her early success,” said Denisty.
But beyond language, Layla also serves as a live source of actionable insights, allowing Faces to stay ahead of what’s next and identify emerging trends. Reflecting Faces’ deep understanding of regional beauty preferences, from skincare and fragrances to makeup and wellness, Layla will also help Faces optimize product assortment and highlight niche local brands that had previously gone unnoticed. While currently only available online, future plans for Layla include full omnichannel integration, enabling customers to seamlessly interact with Layla both in-store and online, closing the gap between digital and physical.
While already dominating the retail landscape with 85 physical stores across nine countries in the region and several more on the way, Layla gives Faces a clear first-mover advantage. By providing advice that reflects real beauty concerns, preferences, and routines of consumers across the GCC and the broader MENA region, Faces demonstrates how technology can enhance rather than replace the trusted guidance that consumers are drawn to from in-store beauty advisors.
With more than 80% of Layla’s conversations taking place in Arabic, her authenticity and ability to genuinely feel relatable and trustworthy are what have helped build trust from the outset, as privacy and transparency are core to Layla’s design. “All user interactions are encrypted, and no personal data is linked to purchases, so customers can engage with her freely, confidently, and knowing their questions will be handled with care, privacy, and respect,” added Denisty.
With significant investment in blending human intelligence with artificial intelligence, Layla embodies how Chalhoub Group redefines retail. Consumers receive the same personalized attention to detail that they would receive in a Faces store, but with the instant access to Faces’ full product portfolio and deep, localized understanding of consumer needs. “This marks the evolution from traditional commerce to conversational commerce, where discovery happens through dialogue rather than just filters or keywords,” said Denisty.
For Chalhoub Group, deploying Generative AI solutions is quickly becoming one of the key pillars of the group’s larger growth strategy. Building on Layla’s early success, the group is now exploring how this model can be extended across other brands and categories, from fashion and wellness to lifestyle. By having Layla remove the guesswork, ambiguity, and room for customer dissatisfaction from conversational tools, and partnering with Revieve to develop AI-powered skincare, it’s clear that Faces and Chalhoub Group are paving the way for a future where every touchpoint of shopping becomes more intuitive, seamless, and fulfilling.
“These milestones are a testament to our ambition to lead the next era of beauty in the Middle East,” said Nitschke.