From recipe creation to marketing, Beck’s Autonomous Beer was crafted entirely by AI.
Beck’s is a legendary German beer brand founded in 1873 by Heinrich Beck, Luder Rutenberg, and Franz Gustav Thomas may on the banks of the Weser river in Bremen. In march 2023, they wanted to do something mind-blowing for their 150th anniversary and with all the hype around AI, they decided to do something radical – they made beer without a brew master with the help of Chat GPT. Even the marketing department had some fun by leaning on Midjourney to design the beer’s branding and marketing. Seed to sip, everything was just AI-generated magic. In order to come up with the ‘Beck’s Autonomous Beer’, it’s not like they told the AI how to do it or anything like that. The AI just went ahead and made its own beer. Beck’s says,
‘we did not create autonomous, autonomous created itself…’
A beer with 5% alcohol by volume and pilsner style brew. Beck’s have pioneered innovations like the use of the iconic green beer bottles, introducing non-alcoholic beer, and this time, the AI generated beer. Autonomous was made available in Italy, Germany and UK in very limited supplies, and it was sold out in almost 10 minutes. This exclusive beer was available on a microsite as a limited edition product. We really hope they plan to roll it out again in the future though, as Beck’s marketing director, Laura Salway explained,
“It was just a trial run with 450 cans. She stated, “the beer giant is looking to the future and planning new ways to engage and excite customers and create revolutionary beer..”
How did they do it?
Beck’s did all of all of this with something known known as ‘compound prompting’.
It is a technique used in natural language processing and artificial intelligence, particularly in language models like GPT-3, GPT-4 etc. Where, instead of throwing a single question at it, you chat up with the AI by giving a bunch of instructions or queries one after the other. This way, you get a smoother and more contextually on-point response. Basically, the idea behind it is to maintain a conversational flow with the AI by giving it a sequence of related inputs.
Beck’s team sat down for a kick-off conversation with the AI. They explained about their pioneering spirit, ambition and asked for ideas to celebrate the 150th anniversary. And guess what? The AI didn’t disappoint! After a deep, meaningful chat, the AI suggested something groundbreaking – an anniversary beer entirely crafted by AI. Beck’s, being the adventurous bunch that they are, decided to roll with it. The AI gave them a perfect recipe blend out of millions of potential combinations. It created a recipe that uses local German produce and 100% natural ingredients. Beck’s started brewing up the recipe with their master brewers. While the recipe was brewing the AI came up with a name ‘Autonomous’. Because, you know, beer pretty much created itself. Makes sense, right? Expanding on the same concept, they asked autonomous to write a mission statement. It’s like the beer had its own personality.
With all these elements in place, beck’s wanted to visualize it. So, they asked autonomous to design a logo that brought their concept to life. And voila! Tagline? “The beer that made itself.” Autonomous, now armed with a recipe, name, mission statement, and logo, created a can design that perfectly captured the essence of the beer, ‘a hybrid between half glass, half aluminum’ autonomous wouldn’t stop there. They asked it to create its own website, considering all the information that it already had. Now that the product was ready beck’s wanted to sell the exclusive edition to the world. They asked the ai to consider its audience and, boom! Posters, billboards, and social media ads were ready to roll. AB InBev the multinational beverage and brewing company that owns beck’s revealed that it also used AI to prepare all of the assets for its advertising campaign, such as generating imagery and a revolving 360 video of the newly developed container.
How does autonomous sound? Well, they asked the ai to not only write but also voice its own radio ad. It’s like the beer is promoting itself! Autonomous didn’t just stop at that. It came up with a full advertising video script, telling its own story, crafted to the last detail with AI magic to bring it to life. At last, the AI even had its own marketing strategy, including influencers, and suggested lines for them to use.
Pioneering the AI generated beer, autonomous proved that AI is not just a tool; it’s a creative force capable of conceiving, brewing, and marketing a unique beverage. You can feel it, smell it, and most importantly, taste it. Going forward we can imagine combining this revolutionary spirit of beck’s with an interactive and personalized twist. Imagine that you are having an AI generated drink that is customized by your suggestions, feedback and history. Hold on to your mugs! Because Intelligentx, a food and beverage company from London has achieved this a few years back.
IntelligentX Customizable Beer
IntelligentX, produced the world’s first beer brewed by artificial intelligence. It was able to create flavors based on your suggestions and feedback. All this happened with a hidden AI system behind a Facebook messenger bot – it’s like the bartender of the future! IntelligentX said
“the use of AI would help brewers receive and test customer feedback more quickly than ever before..”
If you ever have grab one of these unique bottles, you can check out the code on it. That’s your ticket to the future of beer! You scan it, and boom, the bot starts asking you questions about your beer preferences – flavors, ratings, and so on. It’s like having a conversation with the ultimate brew master. Now, that’s the genius part. As the AI learns from your feedback it also asks you better questions for the next time. It’s like a never-ending improvement cycle for your taste buds. But wait, there’s more!
The AI uses something called reinforcement learning. It’s like a gaming system for beer, where the AI gets rewarded for making you happy. If you love those hoppy beers or thick stouts, the AI’s got your back! And guess what? All this feedback goes into a virtual room with the brewer. It’s like we’re all having a massive beer-tasting party, and the AI is the ultimate host. The AI is about putting all the customers in the same room as a brewer. And that’s exactly how it all feels like. Imagine the insane amount of data that they’re collecting. Even if a human couldn’t do it in a lifetime, they wouldn’t be able to act on it. But that’s exactly the magic of AI or we would say science.
While beck’s autonomous showcases the power of AI creativity, IntelligentX exemplifies the AI’s ability to adapt, learn, and enhance your beer-drinking experience. Together, these stories paint a vivid picture of the future of brewing – one where artificial intelligence not only creates but also personalizes our favorite beverages. So, buckle up for a journey through the intersection of innovation and taste, where each bottle becomes a portal to the cutting-edge technology and to the beer craftsmanship.
