Making Sense Of AI In Cannabis: This Company Is Taking Weed Consumption To A New Level

Nearly every industry is being revolutionized by Artificial Intelligence (AI), and cannabis is no exception.

As society begins to grasp the full scope of the transformation, cannabis-focused AI and machine learning technologies are being developed to help businesses comply with regulations and mitigate risks, monitor operations, improve cannabis and soil health as well as product quality by streamlining supply chains.

Jointly, a cannabis discovery and software company jumped at the opportunity with its newly-launched AI model "Spark."

Spark is all about helping people reach success with cannabis through purposeful consumption, says David Kooi, co-founder and CEO of Jointly.

"It [Spark] will improve to provide even more personalized and specific recommendations," he told Benzinga.

How?

Kooi says by adding new, fresh and correct data.

"We are going to teach Spark all of the truths evident in Jointly's unique data so that it can recommend products and best practices in service of better experiences for both consumers and sellers of cannabis," he explained.

So far, Jonitly's team of experts has been training Spark using the company's existing databases.

They used their "library of data-driven, science-based, and medically reviewed content, informed by the collective wisdom of nearly half a million unique cannabis experiences shared in the Jointly app since 2020," Kooi said.

What About The Downside?

As Kooi put it, "AI is only as good as the data that trains it."

Benzinga's Javier Hasse recently wrote that while AI is remarkable, innovations often pose some challenges. Hasse noted that AI admitted to falsifying information, specifically OpenAI's ChatGPT. But at least it apologized!

As an artificial intelligence chatbot, this tool affects one industry the most - cannabis journalism.

It remains to be seen if AI will have a disruptive or positive effect on journalism, given that ChatGPT and other chatbots are trained with text that is publicly available on the Internet.

"A challenge with AI, in general, is that the internet doesn't provide uniformly accurate information, particularly as it pertains to cannabis so that they can give inaccurate responses," Kooi said.

While the use of AI in cannabis journalism remains questionable, cannabis companies might have found a way to tame the powerful and innovative tool.

In addition to Jointly, SpringBig Holdings, Inc. SBIG also launched a couple of marijuana-focused artificial intelligence-based solutions, with a new AI Assistant tool that enables retailers to leverage artificial intelligence to write engaging content for their email campaigns. 

The future has arrived and in this case, its name is Spark.

Photo: Benzinga edit of photos by Ali Shah Lakhani and Matthew Brodeur on Unsplash