Making Perfume with a Nose That‘s Not Even a Nose
Perfume making has been an exact art and science since the very beginning. Perfumers mixed the notes exactly to make new fragrances. Now, how much of a perfumer’s work is art, and how much of it is science?
Perfume is made of notes, neatly arranged together to create a whole piece. It is the perfumer’s job to know all the notes, ingredients, and combinations. This is the kind of work that artificial intelligence would be excellent at. Managing and processing the vast amount of data required for perfume making can be so much easier and more efficient with the help of artificial intelligence.
Some companies are cooperating to make the dream: an AI-made perfume.
Symrise (SYIEY)
Symrise is a German company that produces cosmetic raw materials, fragrances, and nutrition. This company was founded in 1874 and has branches in Asia, Europe, Africa, North America, and the Asia Pacific. In 2019, the annual revenue of this company was 3.4 billion dollars. What’s more, the stock for this company is currently sold for $117.80 per share.
Symrise is one of the most prominent companies in the field of making fragrances and flavors. This company has collaborated with IBM to create Philyra. Philyra is an AI system that uses machine learning to enhance the process of perfume making. Philyra has several purposes, including discovering new materials that can be used in perfume making, carefully measuring the doses of the ingredients that have to be used, and creating unique fragrances compared to the ones that already exist in the market.
Of course, Philyra has a long way to go before we can say it has learned all the tricks of the trade. But the simple fact that it is learning and on the track is remarkable on its own. The first perfume designed and created by Philyra was for the Brazilian perfume maker O Boticário, the third biggest perfume company in the world. The perfume was released to the market on Valentine’s Day of 2018. Egeo On Me and Egeo On You are the two perfumes produced by Pilyra designed explicitly for generation z consumers who always want a touch of technology in their lives.
Givaudan (GVDNY)
Givaudan is another company that produces fragrances, flavors, and cosmetics ingredients. This company is based in Switzerland and had 15,852 employees in 2020. What’s more, Givaudan had annual revenue of 6.3 billion dollars in 2020. The stock for this company is currently traded for $3,716.73 per share. This stock is expected to grow by 9.10% in the next five years.
Givaudan created Carto as part of its 2020 digital innovation project. Carto is an AI platform that helps perfumers develop new scents and accords using a wide touchscreen and colorful, user-friendly graphics. Moreover, the process of making a fresh scent is usually accompanied by a great deal of trial and error. Carto comes with a manufacturing robot that instantly creates a sample of what the perfumer has designed to enhance this process. Unlike Philyra, Carto is only a tool in the perfumer’s hands, and a human makes the final decision. Each of these technologies is revolutionizing the perfume industry in its own way. So, what’s obvious is that the industry would never go back to the time of notebooks and handmade perfumes.
NINU
NINU is another innovative solution in perfume making. This AI-powered solution has tried to involve the customers in the perfume-making process as much as possible. NINU comes with an application that allows customers to choose their own perfume bottles and design their fragrances according to their mood, season, and current lifestyle. This way, NINU’s customers can change their scent according to how they feel and make changes to it whenever necessary.
Another trend that NINU is going with is producing vegan perfumes in green bottles. The bottles used by NINU are made from recycled material. What’s more, if you don’t want to change your fragrance, you can simply send your bottle back for a refill. The perfumes themselves are entirely vegan. The material used in them is not synthetic, and it is not made from any animal products.
Is AI going to force perfumers out of their jobs?
The world is moving on new technologies, and there is no stopping it. However, AI platforms such as Philyra and Carto are not replacements for people who have spent thirty-plus years of their lives learning the trade. Right now, artificial intelligence is like an apprentice who’s merely observing and learning from the masters.
However, this is the simple truth of the twenty-first century. If you don’t want to be replaced by robots in your trade, you need to keep up with the technology. Riding this wave makes the market a more dynamic place when robots and man can work alongside each other to create more customer-friendly products.
