Beauty tech is pushing further into health-adjacent territory, spanning areas like hormones, skin biology, data-led personalisation, gut health, stress and sleep.
It’s an exciting evolution that has been progressing over the last few years. But it’s also where consumer trust is hardest to earn and easiest to lose.
As soon as beauty brands move closer to biology, data and long-term wellbeing, the rules change. You’re no longer just selling a device or a routine. You’re asking people to believe you understand their bodies.
That’s the moment PR stops being a nice-to-have and becomes a necessity.
Trust matters above all
I’ve spent over 14 years working across PR and social, helping brands translate complex innovation into stories people can actually understand and trust.
Across every category, one pattern holds true:
The more advanced the innovation, the more critical trust becomes in order to get people to try it.
In beauty tech, particularly as claims move closer to health outcomes, credibility isn’t built through bold promises. It’s built through clarity, consistency and third-party validation.
Consumer trust alone is no longer enough
Today, trust doesn’t just sit with consumers. It also sits with machines.
People don’t just Google anymore; they ask AI. And AI doesn’t surface brands based on hype, ad spend or who shouts the loudest. It prioritises the same signals we do as humans:
- Credible media coverage: Who’s covered it and what did they think?
- Expert commentary: Do they have people who actually know what they are talking about?
- Consistent, authoritative narratives: What do they stand for and how could they help me?
In other words, AI rewards brands that behave like trusted sources.
In 2026 and beyond, visibility won’t be driven by volume. It will be driven by credibility.
PR’s new role: building machine-readable trust
This is where PR has evolved and will continue to for years to come.
The work we do today goes far beyond coverage. It’s about building credible online footprints that signal authority to both humans and machines, ensuring brands show up where AI pulls from, referenced and validated as sources, not noise.
For beauty tech brands operating close to health and science, this matters more than ever. If your innovation isn’t clearly explained, consistently validated and responsibly positioned, you won’t just lose consumer confidence, you’ll lose discoverability altogether.
The brands that win will invest early
Advanced beauty technology brings a huge opportunity. It will also bring scrutiny, scepticism and misinformation.
The brands that invest now in credible, strategic PR will be the ones consumers believe, media rely on and AI surfaces. The rest risk being misunderstood or invisible. And in an AI future, invisibility is the biggest risk of all.
