In a fast-moving, high-stakes beauty market, the successful brands are those that can anticipate demand — and act on it instantly.
According to McKinsey, the global beauty market is estimated at $580 billion to $620 billion and continues to expand by growing 5 to 7 percent annually. Yet an estimated $120 billion to $150 billion** in value remains uncaptured due to forecasting gaps, slow restocking and disconnected decision-making.
In an era of viral demand, where products can spike overnight, precision in demand and inventory has become a defining competitive edge. While today’s social media moments can drive up to 10 times** the demand within hours, many brands still lose out on tens of millions in revenue due to delayed responses.
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Few sectors operate at the speed, complexity and volatility of beauty, where the gap between data and action continues to cost companies billions.
Enter Aily Labs — the first artificial intelligence app for decision-making intelligence.
Growing up in Romania during a period of political and economic upheaval, founder Bianca Anghelina learned early how to navigate uncertainty — an experience that would later shape her approach to business and technology. Anghelina first identified the problem while introducing AI into global finance. After a decade managing global P&L across large enterprises, she saw where critical decisions consistently broke down — across supply chain, finance and commercial teams operating in silos.
“Companies didn’t have a data problem — they had a decision problem,” she said.
In beauty, where consumers move on instantly and trends don’t wait for planning cycles, delays in taking action come at a high cost.
Bianca Anghelina, founder Aily Labs. Courtesy of Aily Labs
Anghelina built Aily to close the decision-making gap. The platform connects data across functions and gives decision-makers — from executives to frontline teams — a shared, real-time view of the business, enabling them to act immediately. Anghelina said Aily is more than just a traditional analytics tool, it translates insight into action in real time.
Within beauty and luxury, speed and agility have become critical differentiators. Aily focuses on three of the industry’s most pressing challenges: demand and inventory alignment, marketing allocation and product launch execution.
When demand surges unexpectedly, stock-out rates at beauty retailers can reach up to 10 percent, resulting in $20 billion to $40 billion** in lost sales and markdowns globally. Aily enables real-time forecasting for demand sensing and inventory optimization, allowing brands to respond operationally as signals emerge — capturing opportunities rather than missing them.
In one enterprise deployment at a Fortune 500 company, the platform helped unlock approximately $685 million* in inventory value — highlighting the scale of opportunity when decisions are made in real time.
At the same time, marketing efficiency is under pressure. Beauty’s digital marketing spend grew approximately 30 percent** annually between 2022 and 2025, significantly outpacing industry growth, yet returns are declining. According to Influencer Beauty Hub, engagement on sponsored posts dropped 38 percent over the same period, while McKinsey found that influencer-driven discovery fell from 16 percent to 7 percent.
Meanwhile, the shift toward nano- and micro-influencers has increased fragmentation. Reaching millions of consumers now requires exponentially more creators, adding operational complexity and making it harder to measure impact. A recent McKinsey study found that notably physical retail has reemerged as a primary discovery channel for 21 percent of consumers.
Aily enables real-time marketing allocation across channels, helping brands rebalance spend, reduce complexity and directly link investment to measurable business outcomes.
Product launches present another major challenge. According to Curion Insights, between 70 and 80 percent of beauty launches fail within 18 months; this is often due to misalignment between demand, product and channel strategy. And this translates into $15 billion to $25 billion** in wasted R&D and marketing spend annually.
With AI-powered planning, Aily supports launch decisions across demand sensing, channel allocation and portfolio strategy — helping brands go to market with the right product, in the right channel, at the right time.
At its core, Aily reflects Anghelina’s approach to business — turning complexity into clarity and enabling faster, more confident decisions.
Looking ahead, Anghelina sees decision intelligence as the next frontier for the industry. Aily’s system not only provides insights but enables continuous monitoring and real-time action, with AI supporting decision-makers during critical moments.
As beauty and luxury become increasingly defined by speed and complexity, competitive advantage is shifting. Creativity alone is no longer enough — it must be matched by operational intelligence.
“The future of luxury isn’t just beautiful. It’s intelligent,” said Anghelina.
To learn more, visit ailylabs.com.
*Data from Gartner’s May 2025 Insights case study.
**Data from Aily’s proprietary Competitive Intelligence scanner.