Bamberg/Munich, April 23, 2024. With the Bierobot®, the Bierothek® is presenting the first digital beer sommelier to the public on German Beer Day. An AI-supported chatbot can now be found on the Bierothek® website, which makes tailored beer recommendations in dialogue with the customer. The Bierobot® is intended to provide orientation in areas where no human advice has previously been given.
The Bamberg-based beer retailer Bierothek® is publishing a technical innovation on its website to coincide with this year's German Beer Day, April 23rd. In recent months, Bierothek®, together with Axel Kiesbye, the founding father of the beer sommelier movement, has developed an AI-supported chatbot, the so-called Bierobot®, which transfers the function of a beer sommelier to the e-commerce world.
Similar to a consultation in a Bierothek® branch, the Bierobot® tries to find out the customer's wishes and preferences in dialogue with them in order to make a tailored beer recommendation based on this.
The fact that artificial intelligence (AI) has already made great progress in this area was demonstrated by the Bierobot® before its public launch in a competition at the beginning of April. The digital beer sommelier competed against a human competitor. The trained beer sommelier and head of the Bierothek® Munich, Dario Stieren, recommended a beer to test subjects, just as the Bierobot® did. The test subjects then tasted the two beers blind and then decided on the beer that suited their taste better. Dario Stieren or the Bierobot® each received one point for the better recommendation. In the end, the trained beer sommelier narrowly won with 9 to 8 points, but the learning AI system was able to achieve an initial respectable success right from the start.
The digital beer sommelier is not intended to replace people. "There are areas of application where personal advice from a beer sommelier is not possible. This is largely not feasible in stationary food retail, nor in the e-commerce sector. This is where the Bierobot® can be used sensibly," explains Axel Kiesbye, the advantages of the new AI tool. "For us as a technology-driven beer company, it is a logical step that we want to use the possibilities of artificial intelligence to offer our customers better orientation in our diverse range," adds Bierothek® founder Christian Klemenz. The Bierobot® is initially available in four languages (German, English, French and Spanish) and will be expanded to include other areas of application in the future.
