Digital culinary innovation: AI-powered appliances and the future of smart cooking

08 Feb 2024 --- The culinary world is witnessing an increasing amount of AI-powered kitchen appliances, signaling a future where cooking may no longer be an entirely human task. This transformation is part of the broader trend toward smart home automation, with the kitchen becoming a nest for technological innovation.

These advanced gadgets are not just about convenience; they represent how we interact with our cooking environments. Traditional appliances are evolving, incorporating machine learning and AI. 

Dean Khormaei, CEO and Maxwell Deng, CTO of Chef AI, tells Food Ingredients First: “We see the future of smart cooking in an idealistic way. Eventually, there will be smart robots that act as personalized chefs cooking every meal, perfectly on request.”

The US tech start-up has just unveiled what it calls a “real one-touch” air fryer.

“We use a variety of different techniques in conjunction with our sensors onboard to obtain the cooking time for different foods. Our deep learning vision model has to identify the type of food which gives valuable information about its composition, density and cooking behavior,” explains Khormaei.

“Our feedback system also uses AI to train individual user preferences to their optimal configuration by developing a taste and texture profile for the user.” 

Enhancing food safety and nutritional quality
Food handling is a big aspect improved by smart kitchen gadgets. A benefit of the AI-assisted cooking tools is their ability to improve healthy cooking. 

With foodborne illnesses like acute gastroenteritis or oral allergy often stemming from improper cooking, AI systems offer a safer alternative. They minimize risks associated with undercooked or raw foods for ingredients such as green beans and meat.

“We use proprietary algorithms to estimate doneness for a variety of foods. If the food is meat, for example, we estimate the internal temperature using the surface temperature as a proxy,” explains Deng.

The smart appliance can also address the culinary challenges of overcooking, which can diminish essential nutrients. Leafy greens, for instance, are particularly sensitive to overcooking, as research highlights.

“Our thermal model uses regression techniques to infer the best time to stop a cook when a food item is done, ” Deng adds.

The system aims to provide a one-touch solution, providing the user with suggested cooking time and temperature (Image credit: Chef AI).“If the food doesn’t have strict internal temperature requirements, we may use other indicators like brownness in conjunction with temperature to indicate doneness.” 

Promoting convenience with sustainability 
Chef AI’s smart air fryer device not only streamlines meal preparation through the automation of laborious tasks but also provides convenience.

“Many people do not want to deal with clicking through multiple settings or presets in order to start cooking their food. Our aim is to pick the best global preference for the user and slowly train it to their own localized user preference over time using our feedback mechanism.”

AI cooking machines may also boost sustainability by reducing waste and utilizing fewer resources. A recent study indicates that cooking from scratch can sometimes lead to more food waste due to some people’s lack of knowledge and limited kitchen skills.

“We take sensor inputs from the device, do our machine learning inference and then pass the type of food, suggested cooking time and suggested cooking temperature to the user. All it takes is one press of a button to start cooking,” Khormaei concludes.

By Sichong Wang