How Top Brands Are Training Employees to Use AI Tools in 2025

The Beauty and Wellness Industry Is Going All-In on AI

Artificial intelligence is no longer a futuristic concept reserved for tech giants. It has firmly planted itself at the center of the beauty and wellness industry, reshaping how brands operate, communicate, and grow. At Glossy's annual E-Commerce Summit, brand leaders from household names including Ulta Beauty, Sephora, Supergoop!, SharkNinja, Tarte, and Beekman 1802 gathered to share the strategies and tactics they are using to integrate AI into their day-to-day workflows — and the results are nothing short of transformational.

From streamlining content creation to personalizing the customer experience at scale, these top brands are not simply experimenting with AI. They are building cultures, systems, and training programs designed to make AI a natural extension of how their teams work every single day.

Why Employee AI Training Is the Real Game-Changer

Investing in AI tools is only half the battle. The brands seeing the greatest returns are the ones prioritizing employee education and adoption. Without proper training, even the most powerful AI platforms risk becoming expensive, underutilized subscriptions. Leaders at the summit emphasized that the human element — teaching staff how to prompt, evaluate, and collaborate with AI — is what separates brands that dabble from brands that dominate.

The approach is far from one-size-fits-all. Different departments, from marketing and product development to customer service and supply chain, require tailored onboarding experiences. The most successful brands are creating internal AI champions — employees who become fluent in specific tools and then cascade that knowledge across their teams through workshops, shared playbooks, and ongoing feedback loops.

Winning Tactics From the Brands Leading the Way

Start With Real Workflow Pain Points

Rather than implementing AI for the sake of novelty, top brands are identifying the tasks that consume the most time and energy, then targeting those first. Whether it is drafting product descriptions, responding to customer inquiries, analyzing sales data, or generating social media content, the goal is to apply AI where it delivers the fastest and most measurable relief.

By anchoring AI adoption to genuine business needs, brands ensure buy-in from employees who can immediately see the value, rather than viewing the technology as a threat or an added layer of complexity.

Build Internal Playbooks and Prompt Libraries

Several summit attendees highlighted the importance of standardizing how employees interact with AI tools. This means developing internal prompt libraries — curated collections of tested, effective prompts tailored to specific tasks — so that team members do not have to start from scratch each time. These playbooks reduce the learning curve, ensure consistency in outputs, and help maintain brand voice across AI-assisted content.

Brands like Tarte and Beekman 1802 have found that when employees have structured resources to draw from, their confidence in using AI grows rapidly, which accelerates overall adoption across the organization.

Create a Culture of Experimentation and Psychological Safety

A recurring theme at the summit was the importance of fostering an environment where employees feel safe to experiment, make mistakes, and iterate. AI tools are evolving quickly, and the brands keeping pace are those that encourage curiosity over caution. Teams that fear being judged for imperfect outputs are far less likely to push the boundaries of what AI can do for them.

Leaders from Ulta Beauty and Sephora noted that celebrating small AI-driven wins publicly within the organization helps reinforce a positive feedback loop, motivating more employees to engage with the tools and share their discoveries with colleagues.

Beyond the Boardroom: Major Industry Moves

The push toward innovation was not limited to AI strategy sessions at the summit. Several major developments across the wellness landscape underscored just how aggressively the industry is evolving.

Ōura Drops Its Smallest Ring Yet

Wearable health technology brand Ōura made headlines by launching its smallest tracker ring to date, further blurring the line between fashion and functional health monitoring. As consumers increasingly demand wellness tools that fit seamlessly into their lifestyles, sleeker and more discreet wearables represent a significant opportunity for brands competing in the connected health space.

Unilever Invests $270 Million in a New R&D Hub

Consumer goods giant Unilever announced a $270 million investment in a new research and development facility in Connecticut. This move signals a deeper commitment to innovation in personal care and wellness, and underscores the competitive pressure driving major players to accelerate product development and scientific discovery at scale.

Vladimir Putin Commits $26 Billion to Longevity Research

On the geopolitical stage, Russia's $26 billion investment into longevity research reflects a growing global fascination with extending healthy human lifespan. For wellness brands, this kind of institutional interest validates anti-aging and longevity as among the most commercially promising categories in the decade ahead.

Planet Fitness Continues to Scale

Meanwhile, fitness giant Planet Fitness continued its aggressive growth strategy, reinforcing that accessible, affordable wellness infrastructure remains in high demand among consumers across all demographics.

What This Means for Your Brand

The message from the summit is clear: the brands that will lead the beauty and wellness industry over the next decade are the ones investing in AI literacy today. Technology alone will not create competitive advantage — but technology combined with well-trained, curious, and empowered teams absolutely will.

• Identify the highest-friction tasks in your workflow and target those with AI first.
• Develop internal prompt libraries and training resources tailored to each department.
• Create psychological safety around experimentation and celebrate early wins publicly.
• Stay informed on macro industry investments, as they signal where category growth is heading.
• Treat AI adoption as a cultural shift, not just a technology upgrade.

The brands at the forefront of this movement are not waiting for AI to mature further before they act. They are building the muscle memory and institutional knowledge now, so that as the tools improve, they are positioned to extract maximum value. In an industry as fast-moving and trend-sensitive as beauty and wellness, that head start could prove to be everything.