When it comes to artificial intelligence, Perfect Corp’s founder and chief executive officer Alice Chang has seen it all.
She previously served as the chief executive officer of CyberLink until starting Perfect Corp in 2015, which uses artificial intelligence and augmented reality to provide users with beauty recommendations — whether it be best makeup colors for their skin tone or ingredients for their skin concerns.
While Chang didn’t necessarily set out to work in technology — she received her MBA from UCLA — she was always passionate about the category and believed in its potential, particularly in beauty. For her, Perfect Corp’s mission addressed the challenges she had dealt with her whole life, that most beauty consumers and brands also struggle with.
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“I have loved beauty since I was young, and I know how difficult it was for me. It’s difficult to make a decision to buy the right color makeup. There’s so many different colors, lipsticks, eye shadows, blush, foundations. Before [AI and Perfect Corp] we could never try the color on your face,” Chang recalled. “I said, ‘Wow, AI can really solve the pain point of every beauty purchaser and every beauty lover.”
According to Chang, when she was starting Perfect Corp, AI was really in its infancy. Since 2015, she has faced the many and often rapid changes the technology has undergone throughout her career.
“When we started 10 years ago, we started from AI, but at the time, nobody really understood the power of AI,” she said. “Before [AI] was a failure, but the timing, the ecosystem, the platform, our technology, everything, especially the camera, like iPhone cameras [and] front end cameras became mature [and] stronger.”
When the team was first starting Perfect Corp, Chang said the AI models would undergo changes every two-to-three years. Now, the model changes every two months, leaving them to constantly play catch-up. While the ever-evolving landscape may seem stressful, it actually aligns perfectly with Chang’s approach to success.
“Everything was yesterday,” she said. “From now to the next moment, everything is new and needs to be better than the previous moment. I’m a dreamer.”
With AI models constantly changing, the technology is becoming more advanced, and according to Chang, it is the present and future of the beauty industry.
“Because of AI cameras, AI knows you better than yourself, and then does a personalized recommendation,” she said. “That’s how it’s made big changes for the beauty brands, for beauty lovers and beauty retailers… [It] makes the beauty lover’s dreams come true. That’s the power of technology.”
While AI is now the buzziest subject, this isn’t what drives Chang. For her, it’s always been about the passion for and belief in what AI could do for beauty consumers, something she tries to instill when giving career advice to others.
“You have to love your work a lot. You have to firmly believe your vision,” she said. “You need to trust your team… [When] we can break through [and] utilize the newest technology to do things that we couldn’t do before, that’s the success.”