Ekta Chopra, the chief digital information officer of e.l.f. Beauty, says the fast-growing beauty brand is piloting 85 different agentic artificial intelligence use cases. But giving employees more access to generative AI tools doesn’t come with a mandate from IT.
“We want to give the tools in the hands of the people,” said Chopra. “This is not an IT project.”
Chopra set up a cross-functional AI steering committee earlier this summer with leaders from a variety of departments including legal, marketing, research and development. This group is responsible for propelling the agentic AI pilots forward, with the goal of getting most of these agents into full production within six months. “Power users,” employees across the business who are the most eager to use AI in their workflows, are serving as testers during the early pilot phase.
As CDIO, Chopra of course acts as a champion of generative AI and helps make it pervasive across the company with AI tools that can assist employees with research inquiries, IT requests, and data analytics.
Some internal applications of generative AI that Chopra has already deployed include “B.F.e.l.f,” the company’s internal version of ChatGPT, which is used by 80% of employees.
Chopra also launched a new IT sidekick known as “e.l.f.line,” which can already produce the work equivalent to one human help desk employee, answering common tech questions related to onboarding or software troubleshooting. “e.l.f.phabet” is an internal research tool, while “e.l.f.alytics,” which is still in beta testing, acts as a data analyst. “e.l.f.alytics” answers inquiries like “show me our sales from yesterday,” but also has user-based guardrails, only sharing data that’s relevant to the role of the person that’s writing the prompt.
A learning and development portal called “e.l.f. you!” offers the broader employee base explainers about topics ranging from agentic AI to large language models, while also teaching them how to develop better prompts to engage with LLMs.
Chopra says the switch was needed to support international growth, while also giving e.l.f. Beauty the proper technology base to leverage new AI advancements that can further automate repetitive tasks.
“It’s not all about savings; it’s about productivity,” says Chopra. “It is also about creating a culture that’s AI first, so people are not scared of AI.”
John Kell
