![\"Ulta](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/1776882855_161_0x0.jpg\")
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\u201cThe next era of commerce will be shaped by how well retailers turn AI into practical, scalable capabilities,\u201d said Mike Maresca, Ulta\u2019s chief technology and transformation officer.<\/p>\n
Courtesy of Ulta Beauty<\/p>\n
Agentic AI represents an existential threat to retailers. It\u2019s poised not just to disrupt the customer relationship, but to disintermediate it entirely. McKinsey warns<\/a> that agents increasingly mediate key consumer decisions, \u201creshaping how intent forms, how products are discovered, and where value pools can be found.\u201d <\/p>\n The use of generative AI as a shopping assistant is reaching critical mass. Bain\u2019s Consumer Lab<\/a> finds that between 30% to 45% of American consumers now turn to agents, like ChatGPT, Perplexity and Gemini, for research, comparisons and product guidance.<\/p>\n Ulta Beauty<\/a> isn\u2019t sitting idly by waiting for external AI agents to make beauty decisions for customers. It is getting ahead of the curve in partnership with Google to embed Gemini directly into its Ulta.com website and Ulta Beauty app, as well as extend its product catalog across Google search, shopping and its Gemini AI-driven discovery platform. <\/p>\n \u201cThe next era of commerce will be shaped by how well retailers turn AI into practical, scalable capabilities,\u201d said Mike Maresca, Ulta\u2019s chief technology and transformation officer, in a statement. Chief merchandising and digital officer Lauren Brindley added that the AI-powered shopping experiences will make \u201cbeauty discovery more seamless, personalized and shoppable wherever it happens.\u201d<\/p>\n Battle For Dominance In Beauty<\/p>\n In the estimated $110 billion U.S. beauty and personal care market<\/a>, where Ulta and Sephora compete for retail dominance, Ulta\u2019s partnership with Google could give it a decisive edge. While Sephora has long leaned into AI to optimize the shopping experience, including personalized product recommendations, guided shopping, color matching and virtual makeup assistant, Ulta\u2019s latest move is a big leap forward to where the shopping journey increasingly begins and bring it to its final conclusion at checkout. <\/p>\n Until now, the two have been running largely head-to-head in the beauty retail market. Sephora, part of LVMH\u2019s Selective Retail Group, doesn\u2019t break out results, but both chains operate at a similar scale in the U.S. Sephora has about 500 standalone stores<\/a>, plus 1,100 Kohl\u2019s shop-in-shops<\/a>, while Ulta has over 1,500 stores. <\/p>\n Each hold about a 30% share in the prestige beauty market, which totaled $36 billion in 2025, according to Circana<\/a>. But Ulta\u2019s broader reach into the mass beauty and personal care market suggests it holds a larger share of the overall market. <\/p>\n Ulta generated<\/a> $12.4 billion in sales during fiscal 2025, up 10% over previous year with a 12% surge in the fourth quarter. On the other hand, Sephora\u2019s U.S. retail partner, Kohl\u2019s<\/a>, has struggled lately, with net sales dropping from $16.6 billion in 2023 to $14.8 billion last year. Sephora and Kohl\u2019s<\/a> announced their partnership in August 2022 after a year-long trial run. <\/p>\n Google\u2019s Big Unlock <\/p>\n Ulta has garnered the loyalty of over 46 million customers who generate roughly 95% of its revenue. They will benefit from the greater ability to discover and compare products across Ulta\u2019s current range of 30,000 products from approximately 600 brands\u2014a scale that can overwhelm even the most determined beauty shopper. While 73% of U.S. loyalty members transact exclusively in stores, nearly 20% shop both in-store and online \u2014and those omnichannel shoppers spend three-times more than store-only customers. <\/p>\n That makes the big unlock for Ulta from the Google partnership to be its ability to reach beyond its physical and virtual four walls. Ulta defines its target customer as the \u201cbeauty enthusiast,\u201d someone with a \u201cdeep emotional connection with beauty.\u201d Ulta estimates there are some 140 million Americans who fit that profile.<\/p>\n Google gives Ulta unprecedented access to that audience at the start of their shopping journey across search, shopping, YouTube, Lens and Gemini. <\/p>\n Ulta Beauty on Google Gemini<\/p>\n Courtesy of Ulta Beauty<\/p>\n And operating under the open-sourced Universal Commerce Protocol\u2014a new standard that lets shoppers move from discovery to checkout\u2014 Ulta\u2019s extensive catalog of products can be discovered, compared and purchased directly through Google\u2019s AI-driven platform.<\/p>\n \u201cUltra Beauty engaged early with UCP because we see a clear shift in how guests are discovering and shopping for beauty, with AI playing a much bigger role in that journey,\u201d Maresca said. <\/p>\n Google Cloud vice president Darshan Kantak added, \u201cOur shopping agent connects the breadcrumbs of intent and inspiration to guide the customer journey. It skips traditional search filters and helps shoppers connect directly with products they love, providing a fast, tailored experience from discovery to checkout.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cThe next era of commerce will be shaped by how well retailers turn AI into practical, scalable capabilities,\u201d…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":12836,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[10148,24,10147,132,1429,10146,10145,10149],"class_list":["post-12835","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-google","tag-agentic-ai-in-retail-shopping","tag-ai","tag-beauty-market","tag-google","tag-google-ai","tag-sephora","tag-ulta","tag-ulta-beauty-partners-with-google-gemini"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12835","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12835"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12835\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/12836"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12835"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12835"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ai\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12835"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}