AI is starting to smell
Computers used to only see and hear. Now they are starting to smell the world. Stay with me until the end, I will explain what this means for perfumes, home products and robots.
Here in the United States and in Europe, researchers train AI on data from real scents and essential oils. Startups like Patina turn smells into digital data and design new scent molecules, for example cheaper versions of rose oil that do not depend on harvests or climate.
The perfume and fragrance market is worth tens of billions of dollars. When we buy detergent, candles or air fresheners, more and more often the smell will be chosen and optimized by an algorithm.
Other teams are building electronic noses. Sensors record the chemical “breath” of food, air and materials, then AI learns to detect gas leaks, spoiled food or traces of allergens. Here in the United States they are already testing these tools in factories and safety systems.
This field is still young and full of limits. But AI is clearly gaining a third sense, smell. Cameras see, microphones listen, and sensors start to smell for us.
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