AI Is Crafting Your Next Signature Scent—Yes, Really

In an innovative move for the fragrance industry, NotCo has unveiled its new Generative AI Fragrance Formulator in collaboration with Latin American fragrance leader Cramer. The cutting-edge AI tool, named Giuseppe, is designed to reshape how fragrances are developed. NotCo's goal is to offer fragrance brands a highly efficient, customizable solution that cuts down on production time while enabling personalized, market-ready products.

Revolutionizing Fragrance Creation

Fragrance development has traditionally been a slow and intricate process, requiring months of work by expert perfumers to refine and perfect a scent. NotCo’s AI-driven approach aims to make this process faster and more accessible.

Powered by Giuseppe, the Fragrance Formulator draws on Cramer’s extensive database of molecular fragrance data and historical formulations. This allows it to generate new fragrance formulas in mere seconds. According to Karim Pichara, Co-founder and CTO of NotCo, the tool provides a “strong initial formulation” that fragrance experts can further refine.

In recent trials, 13 fragrances developed by Giuseppe were tested by Cramer’s perfumers, who deemed several of these formulations "market-ready" on the first iteration—a significant achievement that shows the tool’s efficiency and potential.

From Food Tech to Fragrance Innovation

NotCo, originally a food technology company valued at $1.5 billion, is known for its AI platform Giuseppe, which has previously been used in food flavor creation. This latest endeavor marks the company’s expansion into fragrance, leveraging its technology to improve the creative process in the beauty industry. The platform taps into Cramer’s vast repository of fragrance data, enabling Giuseppe to connect language-based prompts to fragrance molecules. This allows beauty brands to create scents that capture specific emotions and seasonal moods.

“Our technology allow[s] fragrance experts to assess different formulations faster, enabling new discoveries that end up in novel fragrances,” Pichara said, highlighting how AI can bring a new level of creativity to fragrance development.

Opportunities for Personalization and Emotional Resonance

The Generative AI Fragrance Formulator appears to be a time-saving tool that opens the door to new possibilities for customization. With consumer interest in unique, personalized experiences on the rise, this technology enables cosmetic brands to develop fragrances tailored to create specific sensory experiences, such as the nostalgia of winter holidays or the tranquility of a sunset. Bridging molecular fragrance data with emotion-based prompts will allow Giuseppe to aid brands in novel ways. Fragrance brands will be able to cater to their audiences’ preferences more efficiently than ever before.

“This approach to fragrance creation, where brands can generate and refine scents based on sensory experiences, is something entirely new,” said Pichara.

A New Era for Research & Development in Beauty

With AI innovation transforming the fragrance creation process, NotCo and Cramer are already in discussions with several beauty and personal care brands to bring these capabilities to the market. By significantly reducing the time and resources required for fragrance formulation, NotCo’s technology offers companies an efficient approach to both research and development. Major fragrance brands could see AI-generated fragrances on shelves within 12 to 18 months, according to initial projections.

NotCo’s vision extends beyond fragrance, too, with plans to apply Giuseppe’s capabilities to additional sectors like personal care and pharmaceuticals, as it continues to expand its role in product innovation across industries.

As the fragrance industry adapts to this new technology, NotCo’s Generative AI Fragrance Formulator stands as a powerful example of how AI can support human creativity. AI could be used as a tool rather than a replacement, helping to speed up processes without sacrificing quality. Soon, this collaboration between advanced technology and expert knowledge could redefine what is possible in fragrance development.