Last updated on March 4th, 2024

Artificial Intelligence – a.k.a. AI – has taken the world by storm, especially with certain apps making their way to the mainstream in the last year. World leaders are trying to figure out how to govern it. Large companies are looking for ways to maximize it. Discussions about the impact on jobs and industries – from law and accounting to teaching, medicine, marketing, and everything in between – continue. This leads to the question: What role will AI play in the brewing industry?

While images of robots serving customers may come to mind, most of the potential uses aren’t that obvious. As we began researching the topic, numerous technical terms kept coming up, prompting us to take a step back and start with some basics. AI is technology that performs cognitive functions typically associated with human intelligence. It can incorporate visual perception, speech recognition, learning, language processing, decision-making and more, and bases its output on an abundance of data. All of this comes together in smart machines and computer programs.

When it comes to brewing, I came across many stories about brewers at locations across the globe playing with AI to create new recipes; brainstorm and tweak existing recipes; and explore which brews are most likely to be a hit based on taste and consumer data. Some brewers are extending their venture into AI beyond recipes and using it for package and bottle designs, labeling, press releases, social media content, and marketing.

In numerous cases, brewers are engaging customers in the novelty of the potential role of AI in brewing by holding contests where customers get to vote on whether they like a non-AI or an AI-generated brew better; where they can give product feedback, and more. No doubt the trend of exploring the role of AI in creating brews and marketing to engage customers in the process will continue to grow.

Beyond recipes, there are AI solutions that are helping brewers with multiple locations adjust for variables like water or altitude so the final brew tastes the same no matter where it is produced. There’s a robot in Australia producing consistent foam with each pour. Systems and sensors are being used to promote quality; identify leaks and reduce waste; monitor variables that can impact quality (i.e., temperature of a shipping container and transit time); and conduct predictive maintenance to keep production moving.

Predictive analytics powered by AI help analyze data about market trends, consumer preferences, buying, and more to help brewers make informed decisions about everything from product development and pricing to marketing and sales.

When it comes to supply chain management, AI algorithms are being used to forecast demand, improve inventory management and production schedules, and cut costs. There are even AI-based tools that use data about production costs, competitors, consumer demand, and buying to create pricing strategies that can be adjusted in real-time to promote sales.

Whether you’re looking to shorten development time, hasten go-to-market time, reduce costs, increase output, promote compliance, standardize quality, boost sustainability, or strengthen marketing and sales, based on what other brewers are doing, it appears there’s a role for AI. Still, there is another side to the story…I’ll use my mom’s banana bread to illustrate the point I want to make.

Personally, if I had to choose a banana bread baked by my mother or one from a robot, I’d choose my mom’s every time. There’s just something about it being made by mom, using my grandmother’s recipe, that makes it taste better than any other banana bread out there. I don’t think this will ever change and I hope this isn’t completely lost as the role of AI in our daily lives evolves.

If you need time to learn more about AI in brewing, you can count on RBT CPAs for your accounting, tax, audit, and advisory needs. We’ve been proudly serving municipalities, businesses, non-profits, and individuals in the Hudson Valley for over 50 years. Please don’t hesitate to give us a call and find out how we can be Remarkably Better Together.

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