Rediscovering Fragrance in a Digital Age

Fragrance has always been difficult to translate into digital formats. It lacks an obvious visual or auditory signature, and much of its impact depends on nuance and context. Yet online platforms continue to rely on simplified tools such as note pyramids, bottle photography, and broad marketing descriptors. These representations often fall short of conveying how a perfume actually feels, smells, or behaves over time.

The Rise of Digital Olfaction

The global fragrance market is growing steadily and is expected to exceed 70 billion US dollars by 2028. With this expansion comes a wave of new launches and increased access through e-commerce. But the experience of choosing a scent online often feels detached. Fragrance is complex and layered, yet shoppers are usually left with static descriptions or abstract claims.

This has created space for technologies built around digital olfaction. The term refers to systems designed to detect, simulate, or interpret scent in digital environments. These might include analytical tools like electronic noses or creative platforms that use algorithms to help visualize or suggest fragrances. While we are not yet at the point where scent can be streamed through a screen, digital scent technology is starting to close the gap between chemistry and user experience.

Mapping Fragrance Through Other Senses

Some systems aim to make fragrance more understandable through visual interpretation. The Scent Visualizer, developed by Puig and Bosch, offers one such model. It replaces the traditional fragrance pyramid with a graphic grid, where each ingredient is represented by an image scaled to its concentration in the formula. This method gives a more immediate sense of composition, but it remains static. It does not convey how ingredients interact or how a scent evolves.

Beyond visual composition, emerging research in sensory science points to a more layered approach. People often relate scent to shape, texture, light intensity, or even spatial direction. These connections are not fixed, but they suggest that scent might be better represented through a combination of cues rather than a single classification. This has opened the door for digital scent tools to incorporate more than just lists or charts, and instead reflect how scent is felt, imagined, and remembered.

How AI Enhances Perfume Discovery

Artificial intelligence is already reshaping how people explore and even develop fragrances. At the Osmo Fragrance Salon, the company demonstrated a system called Olfactory Intelligence. Rather than generating formulas on its own, it works with inputs like lyrics, time of day, or mood and supports perfumers as they create. It does not replace the human creator but provides structure and data to guide olfactory design.

This kind of collaboration raises important questions. As AI systems become more intuitive, could they one day suggest a scent that has not been created yet? Will we be able to preview how it might smell before it exists? These possibilities are still taking shape. For now, the more immediate use of AI lies in helping people connect with existing fragrances in a more expressive and relevant way.

ScentGenie AI: A Tool for Expressive Exploration

ScentGenie AI is a digital scent API created to support retailers. Instead of asking customers to sort by brand, note, or gender label, it allows them to begin with something more open-ended—a moodboard, a sound, a texture, or even a feeling. The system draws from molecular structure, olfactory patterns, and brand language to surface perfumes that align with that input.

ScentGenie is not an AI perfume generator. It does not try to build custom fragrances or replace creative authorship. It helps people find perfumes that already exist but might be overlooked. It brings emotional and sensory input into the search process and gives the user a more natural way to express what they are looking for.

The focus here is not on novelty, but on alignment. Someone may discover a niche fragrance from a respected house that resonates with their style but would not have appeared in a standard search. This reframes perfume shopping from a task into a more intuitive, expressive process.

Brand Storytelling Still Holds Weight

While digital tools continue to evolve, the appeal of a well-composed fragrance with a distinct identity remains strong. People still value the creative vision of a perfumer and the aesthetic choices behind a brand. A perfume’s backstory, materials, or cultural references are often what give it meaning beyond the scent itself.

That is why systems like ScentGenie do not aim to replace this dimension. They are built to help surface fragrances with existing value, not generate faceless alternatives. Instead of flattening the experience into a technical query, they bring to the surface perfumes with a point of view and allow users to find them through more relatable pathways.

Looking Forward

As concepts like AI perfume, AI scent, and digital scent technology advance, there is growing discussion around what might come next. Could we eventually experience perfume through a screen? Will scent teleportation ever be possible? These ideas remain speculative. What is clear is that tools for interpreting and communicating scent are rapidly improving.

Projects like the Scent Visualizer, Osmo’s Olfactory Intelligence, and ScentGenie AI each reflect different approaches to this question. Some focus on visual clarity. Others on multisensory input. All aim to give people better ways to explore and relate to fragrance in a digital world.

Rather than trying to fully simulate scent, these tools improve how we understand it. They make it easier to describe, easier to explore, and easier to connect with—even when the perfume itself is out of reach.