When it comes to the creative application of AI, it is all too easy to be cynical. Yet beyond the headlines on AI coming for your job comes a more singular truth: AI is transforming creative execution, a shift underlined by the growing number of campaigns and products underpinned by AI.

Weber Ranch 1902 Vodka, a vodka brand distilled from Blue Weber Agave, is a brand at the forefront of this shift, embracing the power of AI to help consumers craft the perfect cocktail. Meet your friendly AI Mixologist: Tex.

Tex, who is pictured as a friendly Texan tipping his cowboy hat and dubbed as ‘Your Weber Ranch AI Mixologist’, utilises Open-AI to connect users with a virtual bartender, who has absorbed the knowledge of human professionals. 

Tex is not scripted and adapts to individual user preferences to recommend and personalise drink recipes.  

“While most companies and brands use AI simply for automated customer service ‘chat,’ we’re doing something very different and innovative, harnessing the immense power of AI technology to create a first-of-its-kind personalized tool that deepens customer engagement in a way that is helpful, informative, and fun,” says Lee Applbaum, President and CEO of Texas-based Round 2 Spirits, the brand owner and creator of Weber Ranch Vodka.

He continues: “AI is replacing search, it’s the way that people access and consume information today, and Tex delivers on that in an entertaining way, while also staying true to our respect and appreciation for the professional bartender’s craft.”

Tex was built for real-world, real-life behaviour. For example, users can snap a photo of what lies inside their fridge, text it to Tex, and immediately get a cocktail recipe suggestion, using ingredients on hand.

Tex can also direct people to a bar or retail store, or answer questions about batching recipes, planning a cocktail menu for a special occasion, personalising cocktail names for a friend’s birthday party, find alternative ingredients, or virtually anything else that someone might want to ask about bartending and cocktails or brand and category information. Because Tex isn’t scripted, the exact way he phrases answers will be different each time.

Over 70% of Tex’s logic is powered by ChatGPT, not just for conversation, but for core application logic. 

Tex is a work in progress, and according to the team behind the product development of the tool, will never be completed. Instead, it will constantly iterate and continue to get better and smarter as more people engage with it, and those engagements over time help improve Tex’s reasoning and his answers. 

“Most bots just talk. Ours thinks,” explains James Penfold, co-founder and Experience Director at New York and London-based Cyphr, the digital-first experience and venture studio that partnered with the Weber Ranch team to master the technology behind Tex. “Tex isn’t just answering questions, he’s learning what you like and adapting. The more you interact, the more personalised your experience becomes – just like talking to your favourite bartender who remembers your favourite drink.” 

If the first wave of creative AI innovation was rooted in the executional and production simplicity of Generative AI, this innovation underlines that the next wave will be rooted in product development. While AI in itself should not be mistaken for a creative idea in its own right, the ability to create new products that drive personalisation at scale affords marketers new opportunities to drive deeper relationships with consumers.