Goodbye Google? Generative AI emerges as “beauty’s new SEO”

Social media and AI-powered tools are changing the way beauty consumers find brands. Online platforms such as ChatGPT, TikTok, and Reddit are moving into the spotlight, and businesses that fail to adapt their discovery strategies beyond Google may risk becoming “invisible.”

According to Spate’s September 2025 report, generative AI search has “transformed information discovery,” as it yields results as fast as traditional Google search, but presents the results and potential follow-ups like a conversation.

Recognizing this shift, performance marketing agency Iced Media has launched a search and discovery practice to help beauty and wellness brands stay visible amid the changing marketing landscape. 

“Younger consumers, millennials, Gen Z, and even Gen Alpha, now treat platforms like TikTok, Reddit, and YouTube as their primary search engines, valuing authenticity, social proof, and edutainment over traditional results. Today, there are four billion daily searches on TikTok alone,” Emily Rose Campbell, head of performance at Iced Media, tells Personal Care Insights.

“ChatGPT and other large language models (LLMs) have rapidly reshaped how people of all ages search and discover information. There are 700 million weekly searchers on ChatGPT.”

“As Google’s results have grown more crowded with ads, audiences increasingly turn to these alternative platforms to cut through the noise,” she adds.

Spate reports that Estée Lauder Companies said AI search visibility was a priority for Clinique and Origins. Meanwhile, L’Oréal has been testing generative AI discoverability in ChatGPT and Google since 2024.

The beauty market researcher describes generative engine optimization (GEO) as “beauty’s new SEO,” but says many brands are still trapped in legacy thinking.

Social media and AI crossover

The era of connectivity has brought forth a generation of beauty shoppers who turn to social platforms and digital communities for product recommendations. Personalization is in heightened demand, leading to an increase in the number of these platforms being used in combination with AI tools.

“Consumers view ChatGPT as a personal advisor, turning to it for tailored recommendations that address their specific beauty needs,” Spate’s report outlines.

AI tools are trained on social conversations, making brand visibility in these spaces increasingly important.The outcome is a social media trend where consumers share their experiences with using the tool as an advisor. According to the report, TikTok videos featuring “Glow Up + ChatGPT” saw 316.2% month-over-month growth.

Spate highlights a recent TikTok video of a creator uploading photos of herself and her makeup collection to ChatGPT for analysis. The video earned over 1 million views.

“We’re really seeing cross-platform search behavior. A consumer’s discovery process may start on TikTok or ChatGPT, and then they head elsewhere, like to Google for deeper education, Reddit to read reviews, or land on Amazon to convert,” says Campbell.

She notes that one risk brands face if they do not adapt to this new landscape is a loss of market share. “If you’re not there to be discovered — someone else will be.” 

“The second risk is missing out on younger consumers with TikTok-first discovery. Even if younger audiences aren’t your only target demographic, being visible to them future-proofs your brand and ensures long-term relevance,” says Campbell.

However, brands that are not discoverable on social media risk more than immediate visibility as AI tools use social media presence to inform their search results. 

“Thinking strategically and incorporating search trends into your organic social content has two benefits: increased discovery on social search and feeding citations on ChatGPT and other LLMs.”

“We know that Reddit is the number one cited source on LLMs and has been used to train their AI,” she says.

The AI learns by studying social media conversations. If brands are not being discussed online, they risk disappearing from LLM search results.

Try-hard risks

Campbell says there is a noticeable pattern of mistakes brands make when trying to become discoverable in AI or social search environments. 

“We see brands trying to do too much, show up on everything across platforms, and spread themselves too thin across many things, versus owning strategic categories well,” she explains.

Consumers are turning towards AI tools like ChatGPT for beauty discovery.Campbell recommends that brands identify opportunities in AI and social search to invest their time and effort more wisely.

“On the opposite end of the spectrum, we see brands that are intimidated to even start because it’s so new and moving so fast.”

Instead of treating Google Search or pay-per-click campaigns as stand-alone efforts, Iced Media focuses on building search strategies spanning Google Ads, social search platforms like TikTok and Reddit, and LLMs such as ChatGPT.

In doing so, beauty brands can target the categories that matter most to their audience, stay aligned with market trends, and fill online gaps where competitors are not visible.

Future of finding

Campbell tells us that the shifting search landscape creates opportunities for smaller brands less equipped than legacy brands.

“It’s democratizing discovery, especially for small indie players, allowing brands to be discovered and compete, whereas they might not have been able to if they didn’t have an old, legacy website with a strong SEO infrastructure or a ton of budget to compete on Google Ads with big players spending millions.”

Moreover, she anticipates a direct-to-consumer renaissance, “especially with native checkout in ChatGPT on the horizon.”

If this were to be developed, consumers could discover and purchase their products in a single AI chat, rather than switching between social media for discovery, chatbots for advice, and e-commerce sites for purchasing.

Campbell concludes: “For first movers, it’s a whole new sales channel that they can tap into, and with how fast LLM-adoption is growing, it’s going to be huge.”