‘Artificial intelligence without great data is just artificial’: Generative AI that predicts what and how we eat unveiled

Tastewise already incorporates generative AI to help users at companies such as Nestlé, Campbell’s, Mars, Givaudan and PepsiCo, discover dish concepts, validate new product ideas, and generate market research reports. The AI-powered market intelligence platform designed for the food and beverage industry is now expanding its capabilities and launching what it describes as its next evolution of generative AI solutions. The company analyses restaurant and delivery menus, social media interactions, and home recipes online to help food and beverage innovators find opportunities in the market. Its new tool called TasteGPT will provide speed, productivity, and increased new product success, the company said. Traditional market research methods like surveys, focus groups and syndicated industry reports typically report data approximately 13 months late and miss significant behavioural shifts, claimed Tastewise, making them unreliable in the current fast-moving consumer world. The result is products that don’t resonate with consumer needs, high product failure rates, and monumental waste. Generative AI tools, on the other hand, can create a flood of new product innovation, marketing campaigns and recipes, it believes. TasteGPT differs from the broader Tastewise market intelligence platform by extracting data specific to specific company needs and answering business-critical questions such as: what product ideas are the best fit for my Gen Z consumers? And what concepts should I invest my R&D budget in? "People are accustomed to getting the answers they need in seconds in their personal life, through Google, social, or texting a friend,” explained Tastewise Co-Founder and CEO Alon Chen. “ But when they arrive at work, it can take three months to get clear answers to questions that are simple but business critical,” he told FoodNavigator. “With TasteGPT, AI steps in to do the heavy lifting, allowing teams across food & beverage organizations access to what they need, when they need it with conversational and generative technology, ultimately leading to faster decisions and better innovation. “Tastewise solutions you’re familiar with are built for deep dives by marketers, innovators, and salespeople for whom analysis is part of their day-to-day, while TasteGPT can surface instant insights for any stakeholder in the food and beverage space. This ensures further accessibility in order to democratize reliable data across the industry, and better organizational performance." Turning data into meaningful insights and real-time innovation Generative AI solutions enable users to identify patterns and extract real-time, accurate insights to make data-driven decisions faster than ever before, explained Chen. For example, as a concept TasteGPT’s generative AI might produce a canned soup product featuring a combination of burrito ingredients such as beans, rice, and vegetables, with a spicy broth. This product would capitalize on the trend of burrito ingredients, which has a high social penetration and a 45.7% year-over-year growth, according to Tastewise. “With the fast adoption of generative AI tools, people have access to a world of data-based answers at their fingertips,” added Eyal Gaon, Tastewise Co-Founder and CTO. “But artificial intelligence without great data is just artificial. Generative AI is a means to an end. The data that these existing models are based on is generic; extracting relevant, valuable insights requires data specific to your needs. TasteGPT does exactly that for the food and beverage industry.” “Artificial intelligence is the only way to mitigate a lack of credible data by enabling organizations to make sense of vast amounts of data. With relevant AI tools, data turns into meaningful insights that drive better decision-making and innovation in real-time.”