Teaching machines to smell

Month 1: First Experiments with Produce Freshness

This month we began recording olfactory signals from fruits and vegetables at different stages of freshness. The goal was simple: see if a small sensor array could distinguish fresh from not-fresh, and how those signals change over time.

The early data is both promising and tricky. Simple models can often tell when an item is fresh, but accuracy falls once the same test is repeated under different humidity, temperature, or airflow. A system trained in one context struggles when the context shifts.

We also saw how individual sensors behave very differently: some react quickly but fade, others respond slowly but stay steady. Together they create useful signals, but also plenty of noise. Across a few hundred thousand readings, the picture is clear: there is real signal, but it is fragile.

This is why smell is unlike vision or sound. Odors are deeply entangled with environment, and variability is the rule. Any true model of smell will have to embrace that complexity, not hide from it.

The Missing Sense in AI

Computers can see. They can hear. They can converse in human language. Yet one of the most powerful senses, smell, remains invisible to machines.

Smell shapes life every day. It tells us when food is fresh or spoiled, when danger is near, when a memory is real. It is central to health, safety, and creativity. And unlike vision or language, it has no digital representation.

Neosmia exists to change that. We are creating the world's first foundation model for smell. A universal representation that makes olfaction part of the digital world, accessible, useful, and generative across industries.

Imagine preserving the scent of a place so it can be relived decades later. Imagine drones and satellites mapping ecosystems through their chemical fingerprints. Imagine global supply chains where freshness is monitored at every step, reducing waste and hunger. Imagine culture and media enriched with scent as naturally as sound and color. Imagine exploring another planet and knowing not only what it looks like but what it smells like.

And imagine how people will interact with it. A chef asking if fish is safe to serve and receiving a clear answer. A parent scanning a lunchbox and being told the fruit is fine but the sandwich may be past its best. A city inspector waving a handheld device and discovering a hidden gas leak. A designer requesting the formula for a "spring morning in Kyoto" to embed in VR. A winemaker comparing a new vintage to historic bottles. An artist blending "rain on stone" with "freshly cut grass" for an installation.

This is a long-term project. The ambition is to open a new sensory dimension for artificial intelligence and to unlock applications that today can only be imagined.

Smell is the missing sense in AI. Neosmia will build it.