On Wednesday, July 3rd, the Reactors had the opportunity to attend the TEDx ISC Paris conference. This event brought together experts from various sectors to discuss the impact of artificial intelligence (AI) on industry and creativity. The presentations provided valuable insights directly applicable to our field.
Pauline Lefort: Synergy Between AI and the Beauty Industry
Pauline Lefort, Communications and Digital Marketing Manager at Demain Beauty and Founder President of YPB, opened the conference with a presentation on the transformation of the beauty industry through AI. She emphasized the economic significance of the beauty industry, valued at $270 billion, and explained how this sector, historically linked to science and innovation, is now adopting advanced technologies to create connected and high-tech experiences. Innovations such as MyBlend’s LED mask and virtual try-on applications like YouCam are revolutionizing customer experiences by enabling greater personalization.
Pauline also highlighted the pioneering role of small businesses in adopting AI. She used “Demain Beauty” as an example, showing how AI helps these companies remain agile by automating tasks like visual creation and SEO article writing while providing fun and interactive experiences for customers.
AI also plays a crucial role in product development. For example, the long and costly process of perfume development, which typically takes several years, can be reduced to less than a year with AI. Pauline cited SYMRISE, a leading company in the industry, which partnered with IBM in 2017 to create Philyra, an AI dedicated to perfume creation. Philyra offers several benefits:
- Sustainability: Proposing formulations using sustainable, recyclable, and ethical ingredients.
- Productivity: Simplifying technical tasks, allowing perfumers to focus on composition and creativity.
- Creativity: Inspiring perfumers by suggesting new ingredient combinations and expanding their olfactory palette.
Pauline concluded by showing how AI is revolutionizing the beauty industry by creating new opportunities for innovation and creativity. AI, as a fast, efficient, and objective tool, complements the subjectivity and sensitivity of human creators, enhancing productivity and exploring new consumption modes, enriching the customer experience, and transforming the beauty market.
Caroline Jeanson: AI and Creativity in Luxury Commerce
Caroline Jeanson, Market Manager France at NestSeekers International Paris and CEO of Jeanson Paris, explored how AI is redefining creativity and transforming luxury commerce. She referred to a twenty-year-old technological prediction that 80% of jewelry would be sold online. Today, only 20% is, highlighting the importance of access to information and flexible time management. Caroline noted that LVMH’s expansion from 1100 stores in 2001 to 5000 today illustrates the constant pursuit of excellence and authenticity in interactions.
Caroline emphasized that AI values uniqueness and personalization, helping develop strong and authentic brand identities. By integrating AI, companies can enhance their excellence and stability, crucial for maintaining quality client relationships. A personal anecdote illustrated the importance of these values: a loyal customer, despite his high status, primarily sought authenticity and stability in his interactions with the brand.
Caroline also highlighted a crucial paradigm shift. AI’s role in creativity extends beyond facilitating existing processes to valuing uniqueness and personalization. By integrating AI, companies can:
- Value Difference: Highlight unique and spontaneous creative elements.
- Develop a Strong Identity: Strengthen a brand’s uniqueness.
- Promote Excellence and Authenticity: Embrace solid values to ensure quality and stability.
Marvin Jernidier: AI and the Transformation of the Job Market
Marvin Jernidier, with an impressive career at Google, Air Caraïbes, and Disneyland Paris, shared an inspiring vision of AI as a tool to enhance the job market and human creativity. He began with a personal anecdote from his time as a telephone surveyor in 2017, where a colleague, Julie, burned herself with coffee, highlighting the discomfort of workers in repetitive and undervalued jobs, underscoring the need to transform these roles.
Marvin demonstrated how AI can turn repetitive jobs into more rewarding tasks, freeing individuals for more creative and enriching activities. He explained that while AI will eliminate some jobs, particularly repetitive or highly formal ones, it will also remove tedious tasks, freeing workers for more gratifying activities.
Marvin illustrated AI’s potential to overcome technical barriers and realize our creative dreams, citing famous creatives like Victor Hugo and Paul Éluard, who sometimes struggled with writer’s block, and how AI could help overcome such creative blocks. For Marvin, AI offers incredible opportunities to bring ideas to life in fields like music, literature, and art by reducing technical barriers.
In conclusion, Marvin addressed the three dimensions of distance: physical, emotional, and spiritual. He explained that AI will help reduce the spiritual distance between us and our dreams, making them easier to achieve and enriching our lives and those of others.
Sébastien Deschaux: AI and Parametric Innovation
Sébastien Deschaux, co-founder and CEO of DIGITALKIN.AI, explored how AI is redefining innovation. He shared his journey as an expert in firsts, explaining that innovation is often difficult because it involves doing something that has never been done before. Sébastien showed that AI now allows for the computational calculation of the best possible ideas, warning of the need to wisely formulate our requests to AI, recalling the story of King Midas.
Sébastien also shared a significant personal realization: his work could be done better by an AI. This led him to create an AI based on the functioning of the human brain, using a multi-model, competitive, and collaborative architecture. This system can find the best possible idea in a field 100 times faster than Sébastien himself.
He explained that to innovate effectively, one must first identify what needs to be changed before finding an idea to achieve it. Sébastien provided examples of creative talents being misused to illustrate the importance of properly formulating requests. He concluded that as AI progresses, it requires increased wisdom in expressing our wishes, as it will transform innovation, necessitating great caution.
The TEDx ISC Paris conference experience was incredibly enriching for the Reactors. We discovered how AI can transform our sector by increasing productivity, stimulating creativity, and fostering innovation. These conferences helped us understand the importance of wisely integrating AI into our professional practices, valuing uniqueness and authenticity while being aware of ethical and practical implications. The future with AI is promising, and we are ready to embrace these new opportunities to enrich our profession and our world.