BuzzFeed Gives Your Kitchen Its Own AI ‘Sous Chef’ Named ‘Botatouille’

With the rise of artificial intelligence, BuzzFeed has traded its millennials for the bot, and it’s now generating some of its quizzes. As foreshadowed in the media giant’s name, BuzzFeed—which recently sunsetted the award-winning BuzzFeed News division—created buzz with its automation plans. Now, it wants to feed mouths with them.

The company’s Tasty section has been brewing ‘Botatouille’, an AI-powered “sous chef” it envisions as a digital assistant for every kitchen. The addition was described by the New York Times as the digital content body’s “most ambitious offering yet.”

Not to be confused with Disney’s talented cooking rat, Botatouille is essentially a chatbot here to give on-demand ideas on cooking, meal prep, and shopping.

Botatouille was cooked up by the Tasty team’s editorial and tech staff, and is trained on OpenAI’s ChatGPT technology along with proprietary machine-learning systems.

You can talk to it just as you would with a friend who’s had culinary training with questions like, “what recipes can I make with the ingredients in my fridge?”, “how long do you cook salmon?”, “what should I make for my child’s birthday?”, and “what should I cook up on this rainy day?”. Botatouille will bring some suggestions to the table, likely with something far more inspired than avocado on toast.

“From searching for food and recipe ideas, to planning weekly meals and discovering recipes based on the ingredients in your fridge, Botatouille can assist… whether in the kitchen, at the store, or on the go,” BuzzFeed notes in a press release.

Botatouille is a free digital companion that has now been recruited in the iOS version of the Tasty app, with an Android counterpart coming soon.

[via New York Times, The Guardian, BuzzFeed, images via BuzzFeed]