Robotic AI Bartender
Pernod Ricard
Project Overview
Airport spirits retail has always run on the same formula: branded shelving, duty-free pricing, a tasting if you're lucky. Pernod Ricard wanted to replace the transaction with a conversation.
Working with Rothco and Accenture, we built the first AI-powered Martell boutique inside Changi Airport, Terminal 1. Travellers met an AI Ambassador, had their palate read through the 'Untouchable Taste' tool, and watched a robot bartender mix the cognac it chose for them.
Two years from idea to opening. I was executive producer, and the hard part was never the robotics. It was making a machine feel like an experience, every time, in a retail environment that never closes.
Final Outcome
Launched in February 2023, and described by Pernod Ricard as the first boutique of its kind in any airport in the world.
It established the brand as a category leader in conversational luxury travel retail and generated earned media across travel, marketing and technology press. More usefully, it proved a point the luxury sector had assumed was settled: that AI can raise a premium brand rather than cheapen it.