Skin Analysis in Seoul: What AI Shows, What a Doctor Decides

I'm Dr. Jong Seon Kim, a director at Gangnam HERA in Seoul and a board member of the Korean Society of Aesthetic Surgery (KSAS) and of the International Petit Medical Society. In this video I sat down with my colleague Dr. Jong Hoon Lee to talk about a question we hear more and more, especially from patients who have read about high-tech skin scans in Seoul: "Can AI tell me what treatment I need?"

Our short answer: an AI skin analysis is genuinely useful — it turns your skin into data and ranks your concerns — but it is material for a diagnosis, not the diagnosis itself. The final plan should come from a face-to-face consultation with your doctor.

Can AI diagnose your skin accurately?

It can help a great deal, but it still has clear limits: it can only work from what it sees. AI reads photographs and video. When we diagnose a patient — in skin care or in any part of medicine — looking is only one part of it. We also touch the skin, check how it moves and responds, and take other measurements. Those things fall outside what an image-based system can do today.

So when people imagine an AI that looks at your face and writes a prescription, that is not where the technology is. What it does well is different, and in some ways more interesting.

What does the skin analysis device actually measure?

It visualizes the condition of your skin and the shape of your face, then uses its data to show which problems are present and where. The device we use at HERA is the EVE V MUSE AI skin analysis system. It looks at things like:

• Wrinkles, and how deep specific lines are — the tear trough, nasolabial folds and marionette lines that most people already know.
• Skin thickness and dryness.
• Inflammation and redness.
• Pigment — how much there is and where.
• Pores — how enlarged they are and which areas are most affected, marked on the face.

The scan itself takes about a minute. It uses multiple structured-light sources and a 3D scan of the face, which is why it can map contour and volume as well as the skin surface.

What are the four-axis skin types?

The device sorts skin into types along four axes, a little like a personality-type test sorts people. You know how many people describe themselves by their four-letter personality type. The skin analysis does something similar: it looks at whether your skin is dry or oily, sensitive or resistant, whether pigment is high or low, and whether elasticity is good or poor, and gives you a type based on those four axes. On our analysis page this is described as the Baumann classification, which gives 16 types.

I find this genuinely useful in consultation. It gives the patient and the doctor a shared language. Instead of "my skin is just bad", we can talk about which of those four axes is the problem — and the answer changes what we do.

How does the analysis turn into a treatment plan?

Once the patient's condition has been checked properly, it helps us think through what is needed and in what order. In the video we gave a few examples of the decisions it feeds into:

• Pigment: is a laser enough on its own, or should it be combined with an injection treatment that targets melanin?
• Hollowness or face shape: would filler, an Ultherapy-type lifting treatment or a thread lift be the right way to define the contour?
• Skin quality: is the main problem pores, dryness or wrinkles?

One of the strengths Dr. Lee and I both like is that it ranks the concerns by severity — pores first, or dryness, or wrinkles — and so suggests an order in which to treat them. Most people come in with several concerns at once, and knowing which one matters most is where a good plan starts. If you are trying to choose between skin boosters, which Korean skin booster injection — usually just one explains how I narrow it down, and the four skin readings behind a glass-skin plan shows the same idea applied to glow treatments.

Why should a doctor make the final call?

Because the data is only as good as the judgment applied to it — and the doctor who treats you should be the one responsible for that judgment. AI gives a lot of information and data. But the final decision has to be made by the treating doctor. That is also what lets patients feel safe and ready for treatment.

In the video, Dr. Lee and I agreed on something we feel strongly about: treatment decided without seeing a doctor — talking only to staff and then lying down for a procedure — is not how it should work. A sense of responsibility matters. The doctor should have a plan for the result they intend to create and for how the aftercare will go. Without a doctor's consultation, there is a real chance the diagnosis was not accurate, that the treatment does not match the problem, and that the result is disappointing.

Can I choose my own treatment from the report?

I would not. A treatment has to follow an accurate diagnosis, and a report alone is not a diagnosis. When people pick a treatment the way they would pick a product from an online shop — choosing from a list and asking for it — there is a chance of a result they did not want. As the old saying goes, you should know yourself before you act. You need to understand the real state of your face, and since patients often cannot see that clearly themselves, it should be explained by a doctor before treatment. A wrong diagnosis can lead to the wrong treatment entirely.

So use AI skin analysis as one useful step toward a more accurate diagnosis. It is a tool for the doctor and for you, not a replacement for the conversation. If pigment is one of your concerns, our guide to hyperpigmentation treatment in Korea covers what usually follows the analysis.

The honest limits

A skin scan measures what is visible at that moment; it does not predict exactly how your skin will respond to a treatment. The numbers are best used as a starting point, and as a way to compare before and after when you are re-scanned under the same conditions. Not every concern the device flags needs treating, and some — such as sagging versus volume loss — still need a doctor's hands and eyes to tell apart. Results of any treatment that follows vary from person to person and are confirmed in consultation.

AI and specialized skin-analysis devices are valuable tools. But they are there to support an accurate diagnosis, not to replace it. You can see real HERA results in our before-and-after gallery.