How AI is transforming Unilever’s Personal Care business

From innovation to supply chain optimisation, AI is changing the way we do business.

In Personal Care, we’re tapping into the latest tools and platforms to drive superior innovation, sharper execution and better decision-making. It is also transforming how we understand and serve consumers – turning insights into impact faster than ever.

Now integrated into Personal Care operations, AI has become a strategic catalyst for better products, greater efficiency and consumer-first experiences that are delivering tangible business results from factory to in-store.

Social-first breakthroughs

Creating Desire at Scale for our brands begins with knowing what consumers are looking for.

By providing real-time consumer insights, AI empowers our brands with the information they need to engage authentically with emerging trends and cultural moments at a speed like never before.

Aimed at recalibrating how we praise girls, Dove’s ‘Change the Compliment’ campaign, for example, used AI to rapidly analyse consumer responses to creative messaging and single out those that were connecting most with the target audience.

Launched on International Day of the Girl (11 October), the campaign is already delivering highly positive preliminary results.

Going from insight to execution in just six months, including full production and delivery, it has been activated across 25 markets with more than 100 pieces of content. Within less than 30 days, the campaign has achieved 700 million impressions, and an outstanding 94% positive sentiment.

AI-enabled consumer insights that deliver customer connection

The importance of connecting with customers and consumers in retail has also powered a change in the real world, particularly in-store, where Personal Care teams are using AI to shift from reactive to proactive in-store activations.

In Latin America, for example, AI tools are empowering merchandising teams with personalised recommendations. Instead of being lost in hundreds of opportunities, they can now focus on a prioritised action list tailored to local needs.

“We’re bringing digital tools to the frontline in Brazil to help boost sales at the point of sale. More than 3,600 merchandisers across 6,000 stores now use data to decide which stores to visit and what actions will have the biggest impact. With image recognition and sales data, they can proactively address empty shelves and visibility gaps,” says Claudia Meira, Chief Digital & Information Officer, Personal Care and Beauty & Wellbeing, LATAM.

Developing superior productivity and AI fluency

AI tools such as these are now actively used across the business, supported by a change initiative designed to make this fast-evolving technology both accessible and impactful to teams.

The AI development programme, for example, includes hands-on training sessions tailored by function, with workshops and drop-in clinics, where AI champions answer questions, troubleshoot issues and share quick wins.

With the support of leadership who showcase their own AI use, the programme has led to over 75% of office-based Personal Care employees becoming regular users of personal AI productivity tools, resulting in improved performance.

A stand-out example is the Smart Briefing pilot which was recently tested by the Closeup marketing teams. By entering high-level objectives and enriching them with AI-generated content, users saw a 14% improvement in brief quality, a 26% boost in satisfaction and up to 58% time-savings.

Accelerating R&D breakthroughs

Speed is perhaps the most visible benefit AI is delivering for our business, especially in discovery and innovation where timescales have been slashed by this new technology.

Analysis of complex biology issues that used to take thousands of trials can now be done through rapid computer simulations that facilitate and speed up innovations.

Odour Adapt technology, created for our whole-body deodorant range, was developed using complex algorithms to analyse sweat and bacteria for customised formulations.

Manufacturing superior quality at scale across our supply chain

AI is also being scaled across our factories, where it is boosting productivity, quality and speed by powering autonomous processes, running predictive maintenance to reduce downtime, delivering intelligent process control to increase yield and reduce waste, and leveraging digital twins technology to optimise operations in real time.

At the Personal Care factory in Aguaí, Brazil, the Safety Suite solution has been implemented. This system integrates artificial intelligence and image recognition to detect, store and alert teams about potentially unsafe behaviours.

Since its introduction, AI has contributed to a 12% improvement in identifying potential risks on-site.

Another example can be seen at our Beauty & Wellbeing, Personal Care and Home Care factory in Hefei, China which is home to Power Brands like Dove. AI and digital twins are used at the factory to run process optimisation, predictive maintenance and 3D printing for parts to support full production, line automation and responsiveness.

These innovations have delivered tangible business benefits – including an 8% increase in overall equipment effectiveness (OEE), a 15% reduction in batch cycle time (time to complete one production batch) and up to 20% reduction in wastage.

Building on the successful integration of AI into the Personal Care business, Morgan Vawter, Chief Digital & Information Officer, Personal Care, Home Care and Foods, is optimistic about the opportunities AI will unlock.

“We’re proud of what we’ve collectively achieved across Personal Care, and we’re even more excited about what we haven’t solved yet,” she says.