Food Matters Live Podcast 584: AI's impact on NPD, with Antonio Weiss, Author and Tech Expert
Nov 10, 2025
Antonio Weiss, author of AI Demystified and AI strategist since 2018, explains where AI truly helps food and drink innovation. He separates hype from reality. He highlights real brand use cases, when to use foundation models versus specialist models, and the tradeoffs around transparency, data and personalised experiences.
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Use LLMs For Creativity But Specialist Models For Flavour
- Large language models (LLMs) are best for creative NPD tasks like marketing, naming, and trend spotting.
- Flavour prediction, demand forecasting and reformulation need specialist ML (e.g., graph neural nets) and domain data such as nutrient and LIMS records.
Break Workflows Into Steps To Find AI Wins
- Break any workflow into discrete verbs or steps to spot where AI can add value without replacing humans.
- Apply this to food tasks (planning, shopping, cooking) and focus AI on planning, prep and shopping rather than the physical cooking step.
Use Foundation Models For Creative And Trend Work
- Use off-the-shelf foundation models for creative tasks to save cost and speed up ideation.
- Integrate LLMs for social listening and trend analysis rather than custom-building unless you need specialist predictions.
