MJBiz - May/June 2024 - 38

Leading the AI Revolution
AI Concentrates on Extraction
Veteran chemists leverage AI to get the most
out of cannabis biomass
By Omar Sacirbey
W
ith its chemists,
engineers and laboratory
scientists, extraction is
arguably the most technical niche in
the cannabis industry.
But even veteran extractors don't
turn down the help of artificial
intelligence (AI) that can make
the job easier. In fact, some of the
country's leading extractors are
using AI to accelerate and improve
extraction processes and increase
product development.
" We look at how we bring our
internal data and external data
to bear on our business, whether
it's predicting grow yields, looking
at our potency, our residual
solvent results or the design of
our QMS (quality management
system) going forward to be
predictive, " said Tom Regan, CEO
of Root & Bloom, a Massachusetts
cultivation, extraction and productmanufacturing
company whose
concentrates have become among
the best-selling in the state.
AI-GUIDED BIOMASS
SOURCING
For many extractors, the productdevelopment
process starts with
sourcing the biomass. That's
also critical for Root & Bloom,
which-in addition to growing its
own flower-outsources flower
from other growers.
" We send our data back to our
partner growers and say, 'Here's
how your product extracted. Here's
what we're seeing.' We provide that
data to our suppliers so they can try
38 May-June 2024 | MJBizMagazine
SAVE TIME
Tom
Regan
AND IDENTIFY TRENDS
Heylo, an extraction and productmanufacturing
company in Seattle,
uses AI in the same way.
" Those are usually specific to
yields or specific cultivars that we're
working with in extraction and
pulling out trends in things like
cannabinoid profiles at the end of the
extraction process, " said Lo Friesen,
It's really leveled
out our ability to get
an intended result
out of a certain
cultivator's material.
- Tom Regan, Root & Bloom
to replicate the processes that they
used that led to something that we
ended up liking, " Regan said. " I call
it 'strategic sourcing of biomass.' We
want to use that data to be strategic
about that. "
The data gathered from extraction
also drives decisions about which
cultivators Root & Bloom chooses to
partner with.
" If somebody produces highyielding,
high-potency or highterpene
products, we are constantly
monitoring that through the
extraction process. And that
influences our sourcing decisions, "
Regan said.
Heylo's CEO and chief extractor.
" We can say this cultivar yielded
more or less, or maybe had a higher
concentration of these terpenes.
It's more about that convenience
factor, and the quick conversion of
those trends as opposed to us having
to do a lot more of the manual data
management, " she said.
John Hanna, vice president of
technology at C3 Industries in
Michigan, agreed that AI can save
extractors time.
" There's so much analytics in the
extraction phase, and it's such a
technical aspect of the industry as a
whole, " Hanna said. " It's very hard
to get any one person or a team that
connected to the data in a way that
is faster or more efficient than an AI
tool that's learning. "
PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT,
PROCESS IMPROVEMENT
Artificial intelligence also can help
extractors improve processes.
For example, Friesen uses AI
to answer questions about how
manipulating temperature and
pressure will affect the density
of CO2
.
MJBiz - May/June 2024

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