“The world didn’t need a Wi-Fi-enabled rolling pin, and we definitely don’t need Al in a rolling pin.” With this quip, culinary technologist Scott Heimendinger neatly summed up the theme of the Smart Kitchen Summit held in Seattle this week. To be successful, smart kitchen innovations need to address real problems in the kitchen, not just jump on the bandwagon of whatever is the sizzling hot thing in tech. For example, take the Joule sous vide.
This type of pivot is emblematic of what I saw throughout the conference this week: a refocusing by the entrepreneurs and companies in the smart kitchen away from sleek, showy gadgets toward developing products built on an understanding of how people actually cook. Many of the solutions I saw and heard about seem designed to make cooking easier, healthier, and more personalized — the latter being something generative AI will clearly play a big role in.