Parfumplus

P A R F U M P L U S 15 Kaorium is a digital table system with perfume bottles displayed in a semicircle on top. The system enables a poetic interactive experience that invites consumers to smell, reflect and experience, building a new relationship to fragrances in a retail setting. "People are not ready to choose in [the] current buying experience. We are here to help solve this problem.", is how the company likes to explain the process. HERE’S A BREAKDOWN OF THE KAORIUM PROCESS Step 1: The consumer selects their preferred fragrance from a selection of unmarked bottles and places it on a digitally connected coaster. Step 2: Various words that express the fragrance (such as "romantic" and "warm") float onto the table display. The consumer selects the word that to them best represents the fragrance that they just picked. Step 3: The display then illuminates a selection of fragrances and asks the consumer to smell these and choose the one that best matches the previously selected word. By repeating this process of consciously smelling fragrances, reflecting and connecting them to words, the system derives a pattern of the consumer's individual perception and builds a database of word-scent associations. The final output is an AI-generated poetic phrase that brings to life a sensory scene based on three fragrances and words selected in the discovery process. The names of the fragrances are only then revealed. This AI-enabled consumer experience bridges the sensorial and rational mind "It invites consumers to smell, removing memories and biases, and allows them to take a moment to learn about their fragrance preferences." Such a process that requires presence and focus enables consumers to form a new relationship to fragrances. By using Kaorium’s latest version, which can fit on a makeup counter, retailers can increase in-store engagement, education and improve sales while gaining new insight about consumers’ preferences. Learning how to smell fragrances without visual influences and how to express preferences in a world where at least 14 new fragrances are launched every single day holds more potential than we can currently foresee. THE WORLD AHEAD The future of smell will involve the synthesis of expert knowledge, data-driven scent development and an increase in consumers’ sensory awareness, even when the scent of this composition is yet to reach our perceptual threshold. So if you want to know "What is the future of AI assisted fragrance design?" the simple answer is "Everything." © Lima Ralob parfumplusmag.com