AI firms claim they can recreate endangered plant scents without harvesting
Scientists and biotech companies say AI could soon replicate scents from endangered plants, reducing pressure on wild populations. Osmo, a Google Brain spin-off, used AI to recreate a rare tree’s scent from a tiny bark sample. BioHarvest Sciences created a cell culture for an unnamed Southeast Asian plant, aiming for 20 tonnes of fragrance production next year, according to its CEO, Zaki Rakib.…
Key points
- Osmo’s AI recreated a rare tree scent from a finger-sized bark sample using spectrometry and AI reconstruction
- BioHarvest plans 20 tonnes of fragrance production from a cell culture of an unnamed endangered plant by 2027
- Critics argue synthetic scents don’t protect endangered species or reduce wild harvesting pressure
Critics like Mandy Aftel, founder of the Aftel Archive, argue that replicating a scent doesn’t save the plant. Rhian Smith of Kew Gardens notes that wild-sourced oudh remains highly prized. Osmo’s founder, Alex Wiltschko, admits conservation isn’t his primary focus, but his AI predicts scent combinations using over 5 million human responses. Other projects, like Cloud Reverie, harvest microbes from clouds for new fragrances. Still, experts say AI can’t fully capture a plant’s complex scent—it’s just a fragment of the original.
Remaking scents: could fragrance tech help take pressure off endangered plants?
The Guardian AI · 6 October 2026
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