When you think of getting a manicure, you probably think of the personal touches at your favorite salon—from the conversations with your manicurist, to picking your nail color out in person. As companies work to automate the manicure experience, we’re left wondering what that experience would be like without that in-person contact? More so, what would it mean for the millions of salon workers globally? 

Earlier this year, a “robot manicure” video went viral on TikTok, sparking the debate on whether or not technology will soon replace beauty workers. The robot itself was created by Clockwork, formerly known as Marionet AI when it first formed as a beauty tech company in 2017. In the New York Times, Clockwork's CEO Renuka Apte called the service “minicures”, seeing the company working alongside human nail works for in-between appointments.

Clockwork has already garnered interest in the tech world, raising its first round of $3 million from Reddit cofounder Alexis Ohanian's (and cofounder Garry Tan's) venture firm, Initialized Capital. And it’s not alone in the new but rapidly growing smart beauty market. There’s also Nimble and Coral, both at-home manicure machines, and no doubt more companies and advancements to come in the space. 

So what will the rise in smart devices mean for beauty workers? In the US alone, hairdressers, hairstylists and cosmetologists have a workforce of 558 thousand in 2019, with an average salary of $27,742. In regards to nail salons specifically, there were roughly 54,000 nail salons in the United States in 2020, with that number steadily decreasing in recent years and COVID forcing the industry to the brink of collapse.

This means the at-home industry was already on the rise in the post-pandemic market, even before robot manicurists entered the picture. Nail polish brand Orly reported a 800 percent year-to-date increase in online sales last year. This included an unprecedented boost in sales of its at-home Gel Removal Kit.

With the at-home manicure market growing, AI is no doubt set to change the way in which the industry operates, as with many industries. Unfortunately, the low-income salon workers at the front of the field are likely to be impacted the most. It’s not hard to imagine a strong desire to eventually code patterns into a device and receive gel nail art from home, but that technology is still a while away. In the meantime, the personal and cyclical trend cycle of the fashion and beauty industry will perhaps be its saving grace from being entirely replaced by robots. 

As the TikTok algorithm pushes beauty trends out like never before and intricate nail art is on the rise, robot technology can never replace the influencers and the nail artists themselves, who create the designs people save on Instagram and Pinterest. This is because, like beauty itself, the industry is deeply creative and personal, meaning that there will always be a need for an artist to work hand-in-hand with emerging technology. Without that artistry, it’s not nail art after all—just a bunch of robots and colors.