How Technology Is Changing the Way Perfume Gets Made

As AI enters perfumery, are we expanding access to beauty — or automating the soul out of it?” This is the provocative question asked in an article I came across this week outlining the ​growing role of AI and technology​ in helping to develop new scents.

“From concept to shelf, a single perfume can take six to 18 months — even longer in luxury. And like fine wines, fragrance materials vary with climate concerns. One year’s yield will not smell like the next one, or the one before. Perhaps this will be true democratization of fragrance because it drastically reduces the cost of creating one. But it does make you ask: Where’s the craftsmanship? Where’s the perfumer?”

The availability of these new tools for formulating new scents is likely to explode this category. In 2023 there were more than 3,000 new scents (compared to just 400 new fragrances in 1995). The more fragrances produced, the more important marketing and storytelling is likely to become when launching those perfumes into the world.