Scent & Care

The most inspiring perfumers combined with the most powerful AI fragrance tool –
makes perfect scents.

Everyday AI

AI already improves so many aspects of our lives. It powers the voice assistants and facial recognition systems on our mobile devices. It makes suggestions and builds bespoke newsfeeds on our social media platforms. It checks the spelling and grammar of our emails and optimizes our google searches. It keeps our homes running efficiently, our transit journeys seamless, our banking secure and personalizes recommendations for products and movies we might like. It even supports medical diagnoses and augments doctors in preventative medicine. In so many ways, AI makes life better, easier and more fun.

Philyra AI powered perfumery by IBM & Symrise

A one-of-a-kind fragrance tool
 

Philyra is the result of a pioneering partnership between our revered fragrance team at Symrise and IBM Research, whose established AI technology is already catalyzing seismic change in other industries.

Logo Philyra

That Philyra was the first of its kind, is one part of what makes it so powerful. AIs, like humans, get better at tasks with time and experience. Philyra is no different. Thanks to its continuous learning, Philyra learns like a junior perfumer would, refining its knowledge with every creation it produces and the feedback it receives. The more Philyra is used, the more inspiration it receives from Symrise perfumers and the better fragrances it can create. And with years of experience under its belt, Philyra has already learned a lot.

Dave Apel, Symrise VP Perfumer

When it comes to data sets, Philyra’s library of 3.5 million legacy formulas and qualification of over 2000 raw materials in 20 dimensions are unrivalled. These, together with the sophistication of the algorithm and an intuitive user interface, truly puts Philyra in a class of its own.

Dave Apel, Symrise VP Perfumer, whose core team worked with IBM to develop Philyra, quotes the philosopher and media sage, Marshall McLuhan, when describing his experience developing the AI:
“We shape our tools, and thereafter, our tools shape us.”

AI-powered perfumery

AI-powered perfumery –
always inspiring more

From the very beginning, we knew we needed to take a different, more inspiring approach to AI. Rather than focusing on efficiency and automating tasks, we chose instead to focus on augmenting perfumer creativity.

This ‘creativity-first’ mentality meant designing an AI that could analyze thousands of formulas and historical data to identify patterns and predict novel combinations. Philyra, as a result, is able to guide perfumers towards exciting and surprising solutions, explore new combinations and materials without human bias, and help perfumers update and improve upon iconic fragrances.

Symrise perfumers working directly with Philyra have this to say:

“We could have used AI to help us with technical issues, like creating more powerful, stable or commercial fragrances, but from the genesis of the project, Philyra has been designed to be a creativity booster. Thanks to the algorithm, the AI is pushing the limit of creativity by pushing the perfumer out of their comfort zone and away from their daily routine. By adding more of an ingredient, proposing an unconventional accord or twisting the fragrance in an unorthodox way, Philyra helps us to discover and explore new olfactive territories. It’s a constant back-and-forth between human and computer, to create each new and innovative olfactive profile.”
Pierre Gueros, Symrise Senior Fine Fragrance Perfumer

Nathalie Benareau, Fine Fragrance Perfumer
I use Philyra when I want to have fun! She always delivers ideas that bring a creative boost to my work. With Philyra, I can explore a whole new world of ideas for new creative twists.Nathalie Benareau, Fine Fragrance Perfumer
Philyra is one of the most important projects for Symrise. Through artificial intelligence, humans and machines enrich each other and are even more efficient in perfume creation.Dr. Heinz-Jürgen Bertram, CEO of Symrise AG

Agility built in

Pierre Guerros, Claire Viola and Suzy LeHely

Philyra is continuously being optimized and expanded to meet the changing demands of the industry.

Perfumer feedback is directly used to improve the system, while new algorithms are developed to facilitate new functionalities. At present, Philyra has learned to favor particularly sustainable fragrances: based on the criteria of biodegradability and renewability. Philyra can create a completely new fragrance from sustainable ingredients or transform an existing fragrance into a more sustainable version.

In the future, Philyra will be more consumer-centric and will support fragrance creations with more sophisticated hedonics.

Sustainability in our DNA

Sustainability in our DNA

Consumers are becoming increasingly aware of the environmental impact of the products they buy. This is where Philyra represents a game changer for the fragrance industry.

Our perfumers can now collaborate with Philyra and leverage Symrise’s unique palette of natural and sustainable ingredients to create fragrances with improved renewability and biodegradability credentials.

With Philyra, we want to support brands in developing highly creative fragrances with enviable sustainability scores. AI technology is helping to accelerate our efforts and realize our vision for more sustainable products and practices.

futuristic image

AI perfumery in action
 

In June 2019, in collaboration with Symrise and IBM Research, the Brazillian group, Boticario, launched the first ever 100% AI generated fragrances under the Egeo franchise.

Philyra screenshot

Symrise V.P. perfumer, Dave Apel was amazed by the creativity of the AI’s proposals. He fell in love with Philyra’s suggestion to replace the hay absolute in the masculine fragrance with warm chai latte infused with touches of cardamom and fenugreek, a pairing he would not have dared to use for an aromatic fougère. For the feminine fragrance, he directed the creation with Philyra and picked a version with an overdose of a floral fruity osmanthus absolute note, wrapped in litchee and toffee undertones. Both scents proved to be a hit with Brazilian millennials.

Further collaborations with the Latin American Belcorp group, followed in 2021, for the brand Esika with the masculine fragrance Kalos Tech. And more recently, in 2022, Philyra entered the Asian fine-fragrance market with Tros AI awakening cologne in Thailand.

Philyra, Makes Perfect Scents

Chronology of important milestones

Contact

Marie-Laure Nguyen

Philyra Global Lead


Email us