dsm-firmenich : AI is unleashing a new wave of creativity Montag, 14. September 2026 - 07:39

News

September 14, 2026

AI is a truly revolutionary technology, and we’re all familiar with how it can help us to do things more quickly or efficiently. What you might know less about, however, is AI’s power to unlock new forms of creativity.

At dsm-firmenich, we’re pioneers in the use of AI in our industry. That’s why we’re not just using it in the same way others do; rather than simply improving efficiency, we’re using it to further boost the creativity of our creators, opening exciting new possibilities across nutrition, health, and beauty. 

This is made possible by a unique combination: cutting-edge AI capabilities and rich scientific datasets, which have been built over decades of pioneering research in sensory perception, neuroscience, receptor biology, ingredient formulation, clinical data, and much more. By bringing these together, where data-driven insight and human creativity amplify each other in powerful new ways, we are able to push back the frontiers of what is possible, setting our company apart as a category of one.

dsm-firmenich’s world-leading experts are using AI to accelerate industrial processes. For example, we are optimizing distillation of perfumery ingredients and, last year, we were able to increase the yield of a key food-and-beverage ingredient by 30%.

However, it’s the ways in which AI is being used to push back the frontiers of creativity that makes our company truly special. One great example of this is our Molecule Fingerprinting tool, which is helping us reimagine how ingredients are discovered. Using advanced AI, it creates a unique ‘digital fingerprint’ for each molecule, capturing the features that determine how it will behave. By combining our deep knowledge of chemistry, sensory science, and receptor biology with powerful data-driven models, the tool can predict how molecules will perform — whether in terms of scent, taste, stability, or sustainability — long before they are ever made in the lab.

This is unlocking a new level of creativity and speed for our creators. Perfumers, flavorists, and scientists can now explore vast molecular possibilities with confidence — identifying promising directions, experimenting more freely, and bringing bold ideas to life faster. Molecule Fingerprinting helps teams focus their creativity where it matters most, while opening up entirely new spaces for innovation.

The impact is already clear. By significantly increasing the success rate of new ingredient discovery (our first-generation model has already demonstrated a substantial increase in success rate) and by accelerating development timelines, this breakthrough AI tool makes it possible for us to move at the speed of imagination — turning ideas into high‑performing, differentiated, and more sustainable solutions for our customers. We are not just working more efficiently; our AI tool is empowering our creators to push boundaries and design the next generation of consumer experiences.

Molecule Fingerprinting sits at the heart of our broader Discovery 2.0 approach. This new way of innovating transforms how ingredients are discovered by combining advanced AI and data science with chemistry and receptor biology. By providing predictive insights into how molecules will perform, it gives our scientists and creators a powerful new lens through which to explore chemical space. Together, these capabilities enable us to move towards a more precise method of guided discovery, where creativity is not constrained but amplified by data-driven insights.

Molecule Fingerprinting is just one of many cutting-edge AI tools developed for — and with — our creative teams across our businesses. It’s not just a question of us creating our own tools though: our company’s treasure trove of data (accrued over more than a century of innovation) enables us to unlock new value with broader, more widely available AI platforms, too  — such as the revolutionary AlphaFold and other similar tools.

By combining advanced AI with our deep expertise in receptor biology and sensory science, we can engineer new molecules with targeted sensory properties, opening up new possibilities for our perfumers and flavorists. Today, we are partnering closely with former MIT scientists  — who worked with world-leading AI expert and member of our Scientific Advisory Board Regina Barzilay —  to explore these possibilities, delivering breakthrough innovations for our businesses.

These initiatives are just part of a wide range of projects using AI to accelerate discovery and boost creativity at dsm-firmenich. Having created the world’s first AI flavor in 2020, we have long been pioneers in this field. Now, by bringing world-leading scientists together with artistry, expertise, and AI — as well as our wealth of data — we are bringing progress to life at an unprecedented rate and in exciting new ways.