Advances in artificial intelligence and biotechnology are enabling the fragrance industry to recreate scents from endangered plants without harvesting them, according to researchers and company executives. The techniques include using AI to predict how molecular combinations will smell, reconstructing genes from preserved flowers, and cultivating fragrant compounds from plant cell cultures.
Osmo, a company founded by a former Google Brain researcher, has raised $130 million to develop AI capable of predicting and recreating smells. The company demonstrated recreating a rare tree’s scent from a small bark sample by using spectrometry analysis and AI reconstruction of chemical formulas. BioHarvest Sciences has created a stable cell culture from an endangered southeast Asian fragrance plant and announced an agreement anticipating production of 20 tonnes of fragrance composition, with limited production potentially beginning next year.
However, conservationists and perfumers have questioned whether these technological advances truly benefit endangered species. Natural perfumer Mandy Aftel characterized such claims as greenwashing, arguing that creating synthetic versions does not stop demand for original wild-sourced materials or address other causes of species decline. Rhian Smith of the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, noted that while AI could help design alternatives to sought-after ingredients like oudh from Aquilaria trees, wild-sourced material remains highly prized and continues to face harvesting pressure.
The broader capabilities of these technologies reflect developments in both AI and biotechnology. Researchers have collected microbes from clouds and used them as starting points for new fragrances, while AI systems trained on millions of human scent responses can predict how molecular combinations will be perceived. Despite these innovations, experts acknowledge limitations: flower scents can contain hundreds of molecules and vary based on plant parts and growing conditions, making complete recreation of natural scents difficult or impossible.
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