An interview with Perfect Corp CEO Alice Chang: M&A activity, AI’s impact and supporting its clientele

Artificial intelligence (AI) has drastically altered countless industries since its inception, but what may surprise most is the diversity in the industries it has impacted. One of the more unique use cases for AI is Perfect Corp.’s (NYSE:PERF) beauty tech, skin tech and fashion tech solutions.

Perfect Corp. is a software as a service (SaaS) AI and AR beauty and fashion tech solutions provider, dedicated to transforming shopping experiences through empowering brands to embrace the digital-first world.

Some of their AI-driven solutions include: 

• AI Skin Diagnostic – Customers can analyze their skin using a mobile phone camera, eliminating the need for specialized tools. The AI skin diagnostic tool utilizes deep learning technology to provide consumers with real-time skincare analysis and product recommendations.
• Virtual Makeup – Color matching using deep learning and AI allows for true-to-life AR makeup try outs on your products. This technology allows for accurate color matches to real life products, so consumers can be confident that the color they try matches the product they want to buy.
• AI & AR Try On Solutions – Try on realistic glasses, necklaces, bracelets, rings and watches with technology that accurately tracks your movements.

I sat down with Perfect Corp. CEO Alice Chang to discuss the company’s use of AI, future M&A activity, her valuation of the stock and more.

Q: Perfect Corp is the second public company that you and your management team founded. How does being a woman in the beauty & fashion tech industry influence your experience, and what impact has Al had on Perfect Corp?

Alice Chang: As a female, I think gender is not an issue. It’s people. You just need to perform no matter if you are male or female. I was asked this question many times as a female founder, but gender is never my problem. 

I started my previous company 20-something years ago and this company 10 years ago. As a serial entrepreneur, I never look at gender because it’s all about performance. You cannot just say you are male or female so you can perform less. Performance is the key, not gender. That’s my view and my experience.

I think people, always people, are the key for all kinds of companies. You need to have a good team and good teamwork. For a software company, no one person can do one project. You need to work with all the different varieties and functions of people in order to deliver software from R&D, Q&A, design, you name it. And also to work with the customers.

So, I do enjoy creating something from zero, and, especially, in these 10 years, we leverage AI and we stay on top of AI when it grows.

At the same time, AI is not a new thing. It has been in the market for more than 30 years, but it’s never been key until 10 years ago when we entered this beauty & fashion industry using AI. We found that it can solve the pain point of beauty lovers. Once the technology and AI can solve the pain point, it becomes valuable. So, we chose the vertical beauty and fashion industry to jump on and we started from AR virtual try on and now to the new announcement of PerfectGPT AI assistant.

Previously, almost every 2 years there’s a new AI module upgrade, and now every 2 months there’s a new model coming to the market. I think that’s great because for technology, as long as there is improvement, it means you have something more you can do with AI.

Now, this is the first time you can talk to an AI beauty advisor. 

Q: How does Perfect Corp support the growth of its clientele, which includes major brands like Estee Lauder, Walmart, and Amazon?

Alice Chang: Perfect Corp. has B2B and B2C users. Our B2C app users are beauty lovers, which is exactly the same audience as all of our B2B brands, including Estee Lauder, Walmart and even Amazon. The beauty lovers share the same pain point and desires. 

AI, especially imaging, such as face and hand AR rendering, is our expertise. We are using AI & AR to allow those beauty lovers to see what they look like, from makeup or skin analysis or jewelry. 

So, as a female, we want to see what we can get, no matter beauty, skin, jewelry, and try it on our own face and our own hands. My assumption is when the beauty consumer can try more, then they will buy more because they know exactly how it fits on them. The product isn’t on a poster, it’s on your own face and your own hand and you’re trying it on yourself. 

Q; Can you tell me more about the purpose of the Global Beauty & Fashion Al Forum?

Alice Chang: The Global Beauty & Fashion AI Forum has been ongoing for 6 years. Every year, because AI technology improves, we have some new beauty and fashion solutions. At this event, we like to share the new things we see in beauty and fashion AI technology and showcase what kind of new technology we can leverage to develop more services for beauty lovers. We have the technology and we let the brands we invite share how they use our tech to improve and optimize their customer relationship.

Q: Perfect has $157 million cash on hand, what are the plans with it? Anу М&А activity?

Alice Chang: Yes, definitely. We are constantly searching in the market for anything related to AI. That’s our target interest.

Q: In recent disclosures, I noticed that you’ve made purchases of the company’s stock on the open market. What are your thoughts on the challenges to the company’s price, and what steps will you take to boost the stock price?

Alice Chang: The price is really too low right now. Why not invest in our own company? We work hard, we know the customers, we are cash positive, so why not? I trust our team better than any other company I could invest in. We don’t know them, but we know ourselves. We know the business is growing, we know the business metrics are good, so it’s a no-brainer.

Q: Is there anything else you’d like to discuss today? Anything else you would like to share with investors?

Alice Chang: Perfect is unique in the market. No one is doing vertical beauty and fashion tech. Because it’s unique, we need to make more investors understand why technology can help the business and the end user, which are beauty lovers. That’s our responsibility. 

Right now, I don’t think the price matches our value as a public company because we have growing revenue, we are generating cash positively and we know the customers are adapting at a very fast speed now. So we have all these positive metrics, we’d just love to have the investors understand this is a unique model in the AI arena. And we have high confidence to make it grow in the long run. It’s a very sustainable model.