Brewing beer with AI

The former Estrella Damm brewery has been transformed into an innovation laboratory over the past two days. Screens, virtual and augmented reality headsets, speakers and headsets, conference rooms, and workshops of all kinds have filled this iconic Barcelona space, attended by hundreds of employees and family members of the brewing group. With this initiative, called Iamm Xperience, the Catalan company aims to highlight its strong commitment to data management and artificial intelligence (AI).

“Since 2016, we were very clear that we needed to drive technological transformation in an industry that, for obvious reasons, isn't digitally native,” says Laura Gil, head of data analytics.

Fact The Damm Group allocates around 5 million euros annually to programs related to artificial intelligence and large-scale data management.

With an annual investment of five million euros, Damm has been driving innovation for almost a decade. This commitment has been channeled through the IAmm hub , an innovation center where around 100 people work. Under its umbrella, various technological and training programs are implemented, focusing on both data management and generative artificial intelligence. "We have made progress in activities that at first glance aren't very striking but that have contributed to improving efficiency and profit margins," says Gil.

Among the main activities, the Data Lake initiative stands out, which has allowed the organization of a large portion of the data across the value chain, from data from barley, hops, and rice fields and the distribution network to data from supermarkets, retail stores, bars, and restaurants.

Read also Lower consumption in bars stagnates beer sales in Spain in 2024. Noemi Navas

Damm has also launched an agent project, which reduces sales visit times. These agents allow the manager to review customer data in a simple and summarized manner before the visit. Another major project has been the incorporation of Copilot, Microsoft's AI tool, into the workspace. This project has resulted in significant time savings and improved operational efficiency.

The company intends to hire more staff over the next few years.

"We're not planning to cut jobs after implementing AI tools that improve efficiency; rather, our goal is to improve employee productivity by encouraging retraining in their technological skills," says Gil, who adds that the company intends to hire more staff over the coming years.

At one of the conferences held on Friday, businessman and entrepreneur Pau Garcia-Milà made it very clear: “Companies need to change their mindset and understand that AI is not just a technology but a completely different way of working,” he said.

The potential of this tool is enormous, and, as Garcia-Milà pointed out, its functionality is improving ever more rapidly. "In the last 45 days alone, two changes have emerged that have represented a major leap forward: the deep search tool, which allows for the production of scientific publications with high rigor, and the advanced image generation feature, which allows for highly sophisticated falsifications," the consultant stated. As a result of the unstoppable advances in this technology, Garcia-Milà acknowledged that an ethical question now arises that calls for responsible use.