‘We develop and create cutting-edge Beauty Tech solutions that best speak to the current needs of the industry and drive the most impactful results’: Alice H. Chang, CEO and Founder of Perfect Corp.

“Our newest offerings will include hyper-realistic virtual try-ons for eyewear, jewelry, accessories, and beyond.”

Perfect Corp. is the leading beauty tech solutions provider and developer of the award-winning YouCam suite of apps, including YouCam Makeup, YouCam Perfect, and YouCam Video.

With over 900 million downloads of the consumer YouCam apps and over 320 brand partners, the impact of Perfect Corp.'s beauty technology is apparent, drawing on Alice H. Chang's vision to empower the consumer through interactive discovery and experimentation.

The company was founded in 2015 and is headquartered in New Taipei City, Xindian.

Interview Excerpt: Alice H. Chang

Q. Tell us what inspired the foundation of Perfect Corp.?

Perfect Corp. was my creative vision. As a beauty lover, innovator, and entrepreneur, I identified a need and use for AR and AI in the beauty space to improve the consumer shopping and product trial experience. I recognized how AR and AI technology could help to curb consumer pain points by eliminating messy product swatching and expensive product waste from sampling and replacing them with hyper-realistic virtual try-on experiences that rivaled the physical try-on. Besides, I also saw a place for beauty tech to integrate across all touchpoints (mobile, online, and in-store) for a hyper-engaged customer shopping journey that invited enhanced elements of discovery, experimentation and resulted in more confident purchase decisions through try-before-you-buy.

Q. Setbacks are a part of every growing business. Tell us about a few roadblocks and learning lessons that helped you and the company grow through the years?

Adapting to change has always been an important facet driving our success and rapid growth, and this was never more apparent than how we adjusted and pivoted to meet the evolving brand and consumer needs that emerged in the wake of the pandemic. As a beauty tech company, we continue to recognize how our services help bridge the gap between the physical and digital worlds by providing a safer, more satisfying, and more engaging beauty shopping experience for brands, retailers, and consumers. By continuing to listen, learn, and innovate as we gained feedback from early adopters and adapted to evolving consumer needs. Since there was a growing demand for touchless and experiential digital shopping experiences, we have developed and created the beauty tech solutions that best speak to the current needs of the industry as a whole and drive the most impactful results.

Q. Given that Perfect Corp. is the leading global beauty tech solutions provider using AI and AR to transform the consumer experience, how uniquely do you address your clients' needs?

Anything is possible with beauty tech, and we are constantly working with brand partners to create and develop first-of-their-kind experiences and solutions that continue to push the envelope for beauty tech innovation. We offer a broad range of services and solutions to meet every business's budget and needs. This includes self-service solutions like YouCam for Web and YouCam Web for Shopify, which help to service small and medium businesses and e-merchants with easy-to-integrate AR virtual try-on solutions, enhancing their customer experience.

Additionally, we offer more customized enterprise solutions featuring custom experiences and an extensive range of services that span from virtual try-on for more extensive product categories that span beyond beauty (like eyewear, jewelry, and accessories) to instant AI skincare diagnostic, AI hair color try-on,  AI Shade Finder, and product recommendation technology. Enterprise solutions also include interactive shoppertainment services like Beauty Advisor one-on-one for personalized online beauty consultations and AR livestreaming for a one-to-many video broadcast to enhance the online shopping experience further.

Q. What can you tell us about YouCam Makeup, YouCam Perfect, and YouCam Video?

YouCam Makeup is the leading virtual beauty app, which uses advanced AR and AI technology to help users experience and discover beauty through true-to-life virtual try-ons and an interactive social beauty-centric community. The app reimagines the beauty-shopping journey with true-to-life virtual beauty try-ons that allow you to virtually experiment with complete product ranges, color palettes, and looks in seconds. The app also invites users to connect and share with fellow beauty lovers, tune into live beauty tutorials all day long, or connect with a beauty professional for an on-demand virtual beauty consultation from their phone. It's a complete immersive beauty universe to discover, experiment, and shop for beauty with a tap.

The YouCam Perfect is the best selfie photo editing and beauty camera app, trusted by over 300 million global users. The immersive photo app experience delivers superior photo editing effects using advanced AR and AI technologies that create an interactive photo-editing toolkit with a range of attention-grabbing effects and features. The extensive catalog of editing options gives uses the power to edit like a professional with the tap of their smart device, including a range of traditional editing features as well as more advanced backgrounds, frames, and templates that act as a green screen to jazz up any life moment with a tap.

The YouCam Video is the first-of-its-kind makeup and selfie retouch video editor to help you create the perfect video. This unique app allows users to edit portrait-style footage using extensive features including seamless makeup editor, hair color changer, face shaping, backgrounds, video filters, and photo effects which can be added in seconds with the tap of their phone. YouCam Video uses advanced AR and AI technologies that consider individual facial features to deliver true-to-life, natural-looking results across video content and is applied in real-time to show the results as the video plays. With YouCam Video, beauty lovers and avid social media users can master the art of the video selfie and create stunning selfie videos in less than a minute.

Q. Will your company be expanding, bringing on any new products or new services that we should be aware of?

Most definitely! We continue to push the envelope and challenge our team to create more enhanced, interactive user experiences and solutions that continue to build upon a more comprehensive and impactful consumer shopping journey. With continued advancements in AI smart technology and the release of our newest patented Agile Face Technology, which tracks over 200 facial landmarks and 3D renderings with over 20 percent improved accuracy, we are expanding beyond the beauty aisle. Our newest offerings will include hyper-realistic virtual try-ons for eyewear, jewelry, accessories, and beyond.

Q. What are your goals for the next few years, and how does the company plan to extend its services globally?

Our plans for the future are to continue adapting and creating unique, innovative solutions that build on a more memorable consumer shopping experience for brands, retailers, and consumers alike. As mentioned above, we are focusing on growing our advanced Skin Tech innovations to meet the rise in demand across the category and developing new interactive services and solutions that speak to the rise of shoppertainment. We are also rolling out interactive AR and AI-powered livestream experiences to engage consumers on the brand's websites, as well as preparing for the return to in-store with reimagined experiential digital try-on and safe, convenient touchless mechanisms that enhance the in-store experience. We believe AI will continue to drive the next big upgrade to the consumer digital journey and target to deliver personalized product and shade matching technologies like AI Skin Tech and AI ShadeFinder, to speak to that demand.

The Visionary Leader at the Helm of Perfect Corp.

Alice H. Chang, founder, serves as the CEO of Perfect Corp. She’s one of the first visionaries at the intersection of technology and beauty. Her vision of a more convenient consumer beauty shopping experience came to life through the creation of Perfect Corp. and a suite of AI and AR apps that includes the award-winning YouCam Makeup, YouCam Perfect, and YouCam Video. Leveraging her highly successful experience in technology, Ms. Chang has been able to upend and entirely recreate the consumer, retailer, and brand shopping journey both in stores, online, and on mobile, introducing an authentic omnichannel consumer experience.

“With continued advancements in AI smart technology and the release of our newest patented Agile Face Technology, which tracks over 200 facial landmarks and 3D renderings with over 20 percent improved accuracy, we are expanding beyond the beauty aisle.”