Robertet is the world leader in fragrances, flavors and natural ingredients. With 175 years of history, this family-run company, deeply rooted in Grasse, France, has combined traditional craftsmanship with groundbreaking innovation to remain at the forefront of its sector.

It was with this in mind that Robertet began exploring, more than two years ago, how artificial intelligence could enrich its creative processes without ever compromising the authenticity, sensitivity, and human intuition at the heart of fragrance and flavor creation.

At Robertet, AI is not intended to replace humans: it cannot model the intuition, cultural heritage, or sensory acuity that fuel the work of artisans. However, it offers unique data processing and analysis capabilities that can reveal, connect and enhance an immense creative heritage: more than 65,000 formulas, thousands of natural ingredients, and a collective memory that is invaluable but difficult to mobilize without the right tools.

A strategic partnership between Robertet and Artefact

To meet this challenge, Robertet joined forces with Artefact, a leading European player in artificial intelligence, with whom it shares the same culture of excellence, creativity and data.

The result is a multi-disciplinary team of perfumers, flavorists, evaluators, data scientists, engineers and marketers, united by a common goal: to develop creative tools able to assist creative teams at every stage, from initial brief to formula finalization

This vision of a partnership between expertise and data guided by emotion, quality, and the senses is fully embodied in NaturIA, the first tool launched as part of this program.

As Robertet CEO Jérôme Bruhat sums it up, “This project illustrates how artificial intelligence can stimulate our creativity through technological innovation, while respecting the freedom and expertise of our perfumers.”

Complex creative challenges in a multicultural world

Robertet’s craftsmen work in an increasingly rich and complex environment. Interpreting briefs is the first challenge: the perception of a fragrance or flavor varies considerably depending on culture, language, and personal experience. We have identified more than 600 ways to describe a fragrance and nearly 900 for a flavor. For example, lavender evokes very different images depending on whether you are in China, Europe, or the United States. 

Added to this is the challenge of memory and transmission: with almost 1,000 new formulas created every year by over 70 designers, it has become impossible to rely solely on memory to find a relevant formula.

Finally, formulation is a complex alchemy: an average of 30 to 50 ingredients, selected from several thousand, are meticulously dosed to meet specific technical, emotional, regulatory and sensory constraints.

NaturIA: A personal assistant for creative artisans

NaturIA is an intelligent search engine, based on supervised AI and designed to support artisans in their exploration, inspiration and formulation phases.

Thanks to generative AI, NaturIA also transforms a brief into a nuanced conceptual description, which it then translates into search criteria in an ultra-structured database. It can also suggest innovative combinations of ingredients, taking into account creative intentions, market trends, customer constraints and Robertet’s sensory DNA.

The tool features a modern, secure visual dashboard designed to encourage intuitive navigation, creative exploration and fluid appropriation by users.

Adoption by creative teams was immediate. To date:

  • 40 designers are actively using it,
  • More than 3,300 inputs have been recorded,
  • Feedback has been very positive: “A revolution compared to what we had,”; “Faster, more relevant, more intuitive,”; “You can search by pyramid, which is a real plus.”

An agile, business-oriented methodology

The development of NaturIA was based on a “test and learn” approach, combining phases of immersion in different professions, rapid prototyping, user feedback and successive iterations.

Each stage was designed by and for the artisans, in close connection with the real challenges of formulation, innovation and sales performance.

Towards emotional and predictive AI for innovation

NaturIA is only the first step. Robertet is already exploring new functionalities:

  • Predictive analysis modules (to anticipate the performance of a concept or formula),
  • Analytical AI tools (to gain a deeper understanding of different markets and consumer profiles),
  • And eventually, the automatic generation of briefs, linked to the Seed to Feel methodology.

These advances will help make NaturIA a truly augmented creative ecosystem, capable of supporting Robertet’s talents in a constantly changing world.

Redefining sensory creation in the age of AI

With NaturIA, Robertet demonstrates its ability to innovate without compromising its DNA.

This alliance between data and intuition, technology and emotion, craftsmanship and artificial intelligence, reaffirms a profound conviction: humans must remain at the heart of creation.