From virtual assistants like Alexa and Siri to personalized social media ads and curated recommendations from streaming services, artificial intelligence (AI) weaves seamlessly through the fabric of our everyday lives. AI has revolutionized how we access and consume information, and optimism is riding high that it will deliver greater efficiency, better outcomes, and higher customer satisfaction in nearly every sector of the economy, from entertainment and health care to manufacturing, education, transportation, and beyond.
Experts disagree about the precise definition of AI, but the term generally refers to technologies that enable computers to simulate human intelligence and perform tasks such as learning, reasoning, communicating, problem solving, and decision making. Whereas earlier generations of technology platforms required manual programming from human beings to process and analyze information, AI-based systems have the capacity to recognize patterns, make predictions, and adapt to changing circumstances, all with little to no human input.
Just as the internet ushered in seismic changes that transformed how we make, sell, buy, and consume wine, AI is creating new opportunities across the wine spectrum, from growing grapes to engaging consumers. The rapid embrace of AI-based technologies by wineries across the globe signals the industry’s urgent need for new solutions to tackle pressing challenges like climate change, labor shortages, and fluctuating demand. But not all wine enthusiasts are ready to embrace AI with open arms. Traditionalists worry AI could overshadow the inherently human elements of winemaking and appreciation, while naysayers argue that substituting artificial intelligence for human intuition undermines a legacy of tradition, heritage, and artisanal craftsmanship.
Well-resourced wineries are already deploying AI-based sensors, drones, and even robots in their vineyards to monitor growing conditions and assess vine health. By providing early warnings about water stress, nutrient deficiency, and disease outbreaks, these tools can improve grape quality, maximize yield, and increase sustainability by reducing waste and allocating resources more efficiently. Vineyard managers are also using AI-assisted robots, including VitiBot’s Bakus, Naïo’s Ted, and Christophe Millot’s Wall-Ye, to automate laboriously repetitive tasks like vine trimming, pruning, and harvesting. There are also high hopes that AI can help wineries mitigate the impacts of climate change. For example, in areas increasingly plagued by drought and wildfires, AI has proved to be an efficient tool for detecting and ameliorating smoke taint, significantly reducing the need for affected wineries to conduct long and costly trial and error experiments.
Winemakers are also leveraging AI’s predictive insights to aid with fermentation and blending. Besides predicting the optimal fermentation conditions to produce a desired wine style, AI can make real-time adjustments to temperature, sugar levels, and other parameters throughout, improving quality and consistency across batches. Some producers are even giving AI a starring role in the winemaking process. In 2023, Languedoc-based wine merchant Aubert & Mathieu released what is reportedly the world’s first fully AI-blended wine. The team queried the popular AI platform ChatGPT for advice on crafting a fruity Grenache- and Syrah-based wine and followed the winemaking and blending procedures it recommended. Aubert & Mathieu also asked the platform to provide a name, label, and retail price for the finished product. ChatGPT’s eerie suggestion to call the wine “The End” suggests AI may have already mastered irony.
Wine drinkers can expect AI to play a larger role in our future purchasing decisions, both in terms of the wines available and how we choose among them. Consolidation has led to a small number of large companies controlling an outsized share of production and distribution, already reducing the diversity of available wines. AI-driven winemaking has the potential to exacerbate this trend, further limiting access to unique cuvées and lesser-known varieties in favor of standardized bottlings engineered for mass appeal. An increasing number of tech companies are using AI to sift through millions of consumer reviews and reams of historical sales data to advise producers and retailers on which wine styles or blends will maximize the number of potential buyers. If large companies all start chasing the same AI-predicted trends, a market saturated with homogenous wines may unfortunately follow. It would be a shame if wines that AI predicted many consumers would like “on average” started to supplant those that, while beloved by fewer people, have a truly passionate following.
A growing array of apps and websites are also incorporating AI-based algorithms to make personalized wine recommendations. These recommendations frequently incorporate ratings, search histories, and purchasing data crowdsourced from millions of consumers, whose preferences may or may not overlap with those of the individual user. My personal experience with AI-based wine recommendations ranges from inconsistent to disappointing. Results generated by these apps are a black box, offering no useful feedback about why the algorithm thinks you might like wine X, given that you enjoyed wine Y. While AI may one day be useful for helping consumers select a perfect bottle, getting there will require better data and more advanced modeling capabilities than what’s currently on offer.
Wine enthusiasts frequently turn to internet resources, such as Wine Review Online, for suggestions and advice about what to drink next. Here at WRO, a dedicated team of humans produces all our content, and the insights we offer are based on our passion for wine and the many years we’ve spent tasting, writing about, and obsessing over it. With AI now able to analyze and learn from millions of wine reviews readily available online, should we and other wine writers worry that machines will soon render us obsolete? If tech experts can train AI to “taste” wine, will consumers looking for wine recommendations and insights know or care whether a human or a machine writes the tasting notes?
A team of computer scientists and mathematicians recently set out to tackle this very question. Using a large database of published wine and beer reviews, the team developed and trained an AI model to write original reviews for new products or summarize the contents of existing reviews written by experts. The results of their experiment, published in the International Journal of Research in Marketing, found that consumers presented with a random mix of human and AI-written reviews were unable to distinguish between them. Interestingly though, when researchers told individuals in advance whether a review originated from a human or AI, a significantly larger number of individuals preferred the human-written content. This suggests consumers either value the personal perspectives and insights humans provide, or they question the ability of machines to truly replicate the sensory experience of smelling and tasting wine.
From vineyard management to marketing, AI is rapidly transforming the wine industry, and there’s no putting the genie back in the bottle. Whether it’s anticipating problems in the vineyard, automating time-consuming tasks, or adapting to climate change, it’s hard to argue the industry shouldn’t leverage AI to work smarter, not harder. AI may be genius for interpreting vast quantities of information, but our passion for wine remains rooted in more than just data alone. When it comes to our buying and drinking choices, wine lovers clearly still value the authenticity of the human touch. The wine industry has much to gain from embracing new opportunities created by AI, while remaining mindful of the technology’s shortcomings.
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Image courtesy of artificial intelligence.