Next to the beverage businessAt the first Artificial Intelligence Conference in London, another event was held across the Atlantic to highlight the work being done on the topic. Roger Morris reports.
The message that ran through all the presentations at the Vine to Mind artificial intelligence conference hosted by Harvard Data Science Review (HDSR) earlier this month was: “AI is designed to help you make better decisions, whether you’re a multi-billion dollar global wine company or a small family winery with a tasting room—in fact, both are probably already using some form of AI in their operations.”
“The challenge is that not everyone knows how to use the technology,” said one of the conference organizers, Donald St. Pierre, co-founder and chairman of AdaptEdge.
“In addition, the term artificial intelligence or AI scares some people away.”
“One of the challenges the conference sought to address was how to connect research and industry?” added Xiao-Li Meng, founding editor-in-chief of HDSR, which is currently celebrating its fifth anniversary of publication.
Research documents
In total, the one-day meeting featured about 16 research papers and presentations, as well as a panel discussion entitled “A Dialogue Between Industry Leaders and Academic Researchers,” which included Laura Catena, Managing Director of Bodega Catena, Jean-Baptiste Rivail, CEO of Ponzi Vineyards of Groupe Bollinger, Mark Sahn, CFO of Gallo, and academic researchers Elisabeth Forrestel and Daniel Sumner, both from the University of California at Davis.
Highlights of the conference included:
Data people
“One of the first things we need to do is convince winery owners that they are ‘data people,'” says Cathy Huyghe, co-founder and CEO of Enolytic, a company that provides wineries with software they can use in viticulture management, product development, sales planning, marketing and customer retention.
In many cases, she said, wineries already have extensive first-party data collected from tasting visits and through their wine clubs, which, combined with data from wholesalers and other third-party sources, can be key to successful business planning and execution.
Break through the clutter
Jeffrey Meisel, vice president and general manager of Constellation Brands’ direct-to-consumer program, said AI helps his company work with DTC data “to cut through the clutter” of wine messaging and information consumers face every day. Although Constellation markets multiple brands globally, Meisel said using data and AI “helps us create customized hospitality for our individual customers.”
There to help consumers
Total Wine & More, the largest wine retailer in the United States, uses AI in a variety of ways. The most productive use is in the point of sale area, says CEO Troy Rice.
“We have several recommendation models in place to help consumers” make purchasing decisions in the store, Rice said, and since most Total Wine stores carry thousands of individual wines, AI is also being used to help both store staff and customers more easily find wines to purchase.
Pernod Ricard
One of the most detailed presentations on how large conglomerates are already using AI was given by Pierre-Yves Calloc’h, Chief Digital Officer of Pernod Ricard. Calloc’h also reminded attendees that AI is nothing new and that companies like Pernod Ricard have been using targeted data programs since the early 2010s, giving examples from three business areas.
In Australia, he said, “We use AI to predict when we should harvest, while also using that data to prepare the winery to receive and process the grapes.”
Similarly, he said, “We use AI to plan how to allocate our marketing resources across our 240 brands – where to ‘bet’ our financial spend of around €1.5 billion.” About 80% of spending is determined by these data models, he says, while the rest is left to human judgement in portfolio planning. Finally, Calloc’h explained how Pernod Ricard uses AI to process data in its numerous sustainability programs.
Cornell
In the area of academic studies, Bradley Rickard of Cornell University detailed how he used Neislen and other data to analyze the financial impact on the alcoholic beverage industry of a change in Colorado law allowing the sale of beer in grocery stores.
Organizer Xiao-Li Meng was pleased with the reception of the conference by participants from both the wine industry and academia and expressed the wish to hold the conference annually.
“Maybe one year we can host it here at Harvard,” he said, “and the next year somewhere in the wine world – maybe even in an emerging wine region.”
- Find out about all the content of the beverage business AI conference here.
