Does AI and Smart Tech Deserve a Home In the Kitchen?

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“I’m gonna rip apart her quote here. But Julia Child once said something along these lines: the best people love food, and love to eat.” At the Horse and Plow, a dimly-lit historic tavern at the The American Club in Kohler, Wisconsin, the celebrity chef and restauranteur Scott Conant throws back another handful of bar popcorn. He blends in with any other patron there watching the afternoon football game, but in under an hour, Conant will transform onstage at the Kohler Food & Wine Festival for a cooking demonstration to a crowd of fans, eager to learn kitchen secrets from the Chopped judge himself.

“It’s taken me a long time to really love that entertainment element of it,” Conant also admits with a smile. “I basically have three jokes on stage, and I use them all the time. I mean, I think that people show up to these things because they’ve seen us on television, or like our restaurants, you know? It’s not the worst thing in the world. No, the worst thing is when they show up and they’re like, ‘are you Bobby Flay?’ [Laughs].”

Set amidst the backdrop of Gilmore Girls and greeting card-levels of picturesque fall foliage, Kohler Food & Wine is a relentlessly busy four-day experience where some of the most talented chefs, winemakers, and culinary innovators have gathered to show off for a crowd of hungry visitors from across the country. There are, of course, those who come to learn how to braise the perfect pork tenderloin or how to nose out a good orange wine. But for the most part, food and wine demos are a kind of performance — something echoed by several of the chefs we spoke to at the fest, including Conant’s colleague and fellow TV personality, Andrew Zimmerman.

“I believe people come here for entertainment and for pleasure-seeking,” he tells me backstage, in-between demos. It’s his second time at Kohler’s festival too, the chef and philanthropist having hosted a private dinner here 15 years ago. “I mean, there’s alcohol and food on one end, and then there’s the spa and golf courses on the other. I like to talk about capital ‘F’ food issues, but I know that people don’t come here to be lectured. To the ones who are just here to hear me make a couple of fun crock pot jokes? They get that too.”

And in a way, it makes sense — in all honesty, how many folks are going to go home and recreate a [checks notes] duck Tsukune with cured egg and crispy venison with tamarind chutney? Maybe they will. But what most will take away are the easier methods between flashier flambés and pan flips, the advice on how to streamline their everyday cooking tasks. Ever hear the joke of what professional chefs make for their own dinner when they go home at the end of a shift? — A cup of ramen noodles. Even the pros want to make their own lives easier in the kitchen, because let’s face it, no one loves having to deal with a pile of dishes and a 16-step recipe at 9 p.m. on a Tuesday. But that got us thinking: what’s making our kitchen lives easier when we get back home? Or at least, what’s promising to? Smart tech.

The tech industry is increasingly encroaching on our kitchens in new and intriguing ways. According to consulting firm Spherical Insights, they predict the smart kitchen category is on track to reach $76 billion by 2033. While the definition of a “smart kitchen” product is pretty loose (and can conjure up images of Disneyland’s Monsanto House of the Future), it’s largely a catch-all for devices that are either a) Wi-Fi-enabled or b) contain some form of AI (or both). We’ve seen our fair share of everything from self-cleaning air fryers, to app-connected cocktail-mixing machines, but at a certain point we need to ask ourselves: does our stand mixer really need to be connected to an smartphone app?

Arguably, a lot of what’s considered “AI” in kitchen tech (or any consumer home product, for that matter) is just fancy marketing for basic automation. But either way, smart kitchen gear has dominated in recent years at CES, and now it feels like even your toaster oven can adapt to your cooking habits. The buzzy June Oven pioneered the ability to recognize elements of food and drink and adjust the appliance accordingly with an internal HD camera, also allowing you to watch how your food was cooking on your phone (instead of, simply, checking through the glass door). Fun to play around with? Sure. Superfluous? Maybe — and certainly at the price point some of these gadgets are going for (for $1,299 retail, it’s no wonder there’s no current plans for a restock of the June Oven, although there are rumors of integrating the tech into existing Weber grills).

What a lot of these smart appliances aim to do is cut out the complicated cooking tasks and decisions made by humans, ones where previously the advice of chefs like Conant, Zimmerman, and Chauhan would help. “At the risk of sounding like an old guy, I think the intention is to make life more simple,” Conant muses. “But unless those gadgets are so easy to operate that a five-year-old from anywhere in the world can pick it up and do it — it’s a pain in the neck. Think about the process of roasting a piece of salmon. Just turn the oven on, you’re going to sear it in the pan, and finish it in the oven. It’ll take you seven to 12 minutes, and you’re fine. Anything else is overthinking.”

Especially for novice cooks, learning how to tell the doneness of your meat, or when a dough has been kneaded to the right consistency are kitchen rites of passage. For chef and restauranteur Maneet Chauhan, this means that when it comes to making your kitchen “smarter”, it all comes down to moderation. “I think technology should be just one tool in your cooking Swiss Army knife. Think about your air fryer — that’s a perfect example of streamlining cooking steps. We don’t use air fryers in commercial kitchens, but what we do use are convection ovens, which is practically the same concept. But you are the one who has to learn how to properly prep the meat, the knife skills to chop the vegetables, etc.”

Other than the steep barrier-to-entry price, are these smart appliances that purport to help home chefs beef up their skills actually stunting their growth in the kitchen? Arguably people who want to cook from scratch also want to learn — the rest will just order delivery, says Conant, not a $1,000 oven. “Audiences really do want to learn, how do I make this taste so good? How can I do this at home? I never cooked a lot at home until I had kids, because I was always in restaurants, right? So I started to think, what are the tips and tricks that people can take from my demos and use to become better home chefs?”

Smart kitchen tech can even feel fascinatingly flashy to some chefs, and even helpful to some like Zimmerman. “Let me tell you why I’m a bit hopeful. First of all, we are time poor right now in this country, and it’s one of the reasons why we spend less and less time together. Everyone is over schedule, and we’re inundated with too much stress. So if there are products that save us time and make life easier for caregivers to put food on the table, I’m all for that.”

He adds that there are useful inventions that were once considered too industrial and “tech-y” that have since entered home kitchens, such as sous vide cookers and vacuum sealers. “Thirty years ago those two things, collectively, used to cost about $8,000 to $18,000. They’re such a time saver, and and such an improvement in your cooking life. Just about a $100 investment now, and you don’t need to buy an expensive 10-in-1 oven. There are inexpensive “smart” ovens now too, like from Breville. But while AI and other types of kitchen tech have a wonderful ability to help us, I think we’re still in their infancy right now.”

But there is one element to the “smart” race that does worry Zimmerman, and it requires a bit of going back in time to understand how we got here. “Here’s why I’m still a bit wary. About 75 years ago — when supermarkets boomed in post-WWII America — manufacturers in the Fifties started selling larger refrigerators to Americans. Now they’re very big. The idea at the time was for your family shop once a week and put everything in your refrigerator. Seventy-five years later, shopping once a week is a nightmare because of our busier modern schedules.” This has lead to a massive amount of food waste, around 50% of which actually occurs post-consumer contact — and what Zimmerman believes comes from over-shopping.

“I just don’t want this new tech to go the same way that the old tech did. It’s sold as a short-term solution to a problem, but long-term becomes even more of a problem, as did the size of the American refrigerator. I recently bought a European refrigerator — it’s tall and skinny. Shopping more actually helps me save food, since I use more of it before it spoils. With this new kitchen tech, we keep selling convenience, but what we’re really being sold is a way to kick the problem down the road. And that has me cautious, to say the least.”

So what does Zimmerman’s ideal kitchen of the future look like? “I’d like to see a few induction pods, a more modern, multi-functional microwave, and a combi oven.” A ‘combi ovens’ is chef speak for something that steams, has convection, air fries, etc, something made more accessibly-priced in recent years from brands like Ninja. “Those 10-in-1 smart AI gadgets, I think, are trying to address a problem that I think combi ovens address more effectively. Home units are kind of like having a fancy microwave, and if it’s big enough, then that will replace a whole slew of energy-sucking devices in your kitchen.”

That being said, it seems like smart kitchen tech can feel unnecessary at times if you’re someone who actually enjoys the process of cooking (like me). Over-engineered appliances like the June Oven and GE Profile Smart smart mixer don’t seem quite interested in making anyone a better cook. Whether it’s the oftentimes $1,000+ price tag, or the amount of counter real estate they eat up, many of these products feel more like proof-of-concepts that were designed to wow on the floor of CES (and many do, and receive design awards — even from us) rather than be an integral part of anyone’s kitchen toolkit. Just because you can cram in AI everywhere doesn’t always mean you always should.

For Zimmerman, further automation also raises the problem of the connection we have to physically making our food. “We lose our touch and feel for it, and for people like me, that’s my yoga. That’s how I take care of my mental health, is by cooking. I just made cavatelli from scratch, and when you’re making homemade pasta dough and you’re it rolling out, I’m not thinking for that hour about all my life problems. And we all have life problems. Everyone has to have a yoga, right? A meditative practice that allows one to focus completely on something — because that’s what quiets our mind and gets our serotonin going. So I worry about this new tech supplanting that, and taking that away for many people.”

But even if cooking isn’t your “yoga”, professional chefs like Conant and Chauhan agree that your most essential tools really can be the simplest options. “I think what you really need are good pans,” Conant suggests. “A great cast iron pan will help you no matter, and it gets seasoned over the years from use. I don’t come from money, so I got passed down the cast iron pan [laughs]. But those family heirlooms — your grandmother’s spoons, or your father’s tortilla press — those are important, too.”

“There’s nothing like a really good chef’s knife,” is Chauhan’s advice. “There’s no need for those 15-knife sets, especially if you’re just starting out and learning to cook. Even something small, such as a cooking spoon, can be essential.”

When they’re not trying be a do-it-all, 12-in-one miracle makers, there are smart kitchen gadgets and appliances that can be a worthwhile additions to your daily routines (and worth the cost). Both Conant and Zimmerman brought up the one appliance they believe has revolutionized home kitchens the most in recent history: the humble microwave. “The allure of it is the ease-of-use. It’s arguably the most advanced kitchen gadget that we’ve had in the past 30-40 years,” says Conant.

“I’ve done 200 interviews in the past year, and in at least half of them, I always gets asked ‘well, what single appliance do you recommend?’,” laughs Zimmerman. “It was popular a couple years ago for chefs to say, get rid of all your single-use appliances! And there are a couple single-use appliances that I love. But for the most part, I look for diversity. I actually think the most energy-saving device that has the most uses when utilized properly is your microwave. They defrost fantastically, they reheat beautifully. If you take two minutes to read the manual and understand how to do so at a very low temperature, they’re great for things like cooking rice, too.”

Smart kitchen tech is understandably still finding its footing, but until some of these innovations enter affordable ubiquity (which some already have — smart coffee makers that brew on a schedule have gotten very good and very cheap), they might just be relegated to shining aspirations for our “kitchen of the future”. Even appliances with a lighter AI touch, such a Breville’s Joule Oven, can get it right when they focus on what home cooks actually need (like notifications when the oven is preheated and again when the food is finished cooking, and a fantastic rotisserie function).

Sure, they may have a foothold in the vacuum category, but robots are not taking over our kitchens anytime soon. And for that, it’s heartening to learn that the pros don’t seem to get sick of teaching the basics, either. “I never get tired of it. Never,” says Chauhan. “Even if you’re just refreshing your skills, everyone can take something away from a kitchen demo or class.”

AI might already be in our iPhones and laptops, but it can’t be stirred into a pot or sautéed in our meals. It’s nice to know that there’s still a little bit of you in every dish, Contant points out. “When you eat someone’s dish, you get to know who that chef is by eating the food. There’s another quote I’m going to butcher: Picasso was talking to a young student, and that student was explaining their ideas of how they wanted to make art. Picasso stopped them and said, “It’s fine. But don’t talk about it. Say it with your painting. I feel like that’s such a powerful experience, to be able to identify a chef’s point of view, their heart laid bare, without them ever having to say it. It’s all on the plate.”