DUSSELDORF, GERMANY — Artificial intelligence (AI) is reshaping the baking industry, driving improved consistency, productivity, labor savings and more.

At iba 2025, held May 18-22 in Dusseldorf, Germany, Jorge Zarate, senior vice president of operations and engineering, Grupo Bimbo, Mexico City, dove into how bakers are using AI and the challenges that exist when adopting it. 

While there are many potential applications for AI, Zarate emphasized bakers must first nail down the operational challenge they’re trying to solve. 

“It's not a good idea to connect everything [to AI] because it's expensive and you lose the focus of what you want to do,” he said. “You want to answer several questions to make sure that you are trying to solve the right problem.”

The cost to invest in AI remains high, but Zarate noted the technology will become more accessible going forward. 

AI’s unemployment impact cannot be ignored either, he said. 

“We may say there’s no impact, but there’s going to be an impact,” he said. “We are talking about productivity and reducing costs, [unemployment] is going to happen.” 

AI’s labor impact will require bakers to upskill their workforce into new positions, he said, including roles that leverage the data AI is gathering to improve the bakery’s operation.

AI also poses privacy concerns, as the use of cloud-based AI systems make companies more susceptible to hacks, Zarate said. 

“These challenges are happening, but I’m sure every year they’re going down,” Zarate pointed out. “I think everyone will agree that [AI and automation] is needed for our industry.”

He observed that AI technologies like machine learning, vision systems and predictive analytics are creating more consistent bakery products and optimizing supply chains. For example, AI systems can better monitor and control baking parameters like temperature and time, while vision systems can identify defects such as incorrect product weight or color.  

“You can have consistency in the process, which is productivity, which is reducing waste, which is increasing quality, which is what all the bakers dream of,” Zarate said.

Zarate highlighted the ways Grupo Bimbo and other bakeries are leveraging AI technology throughout their supply chain. For ingredient procurement, AI can forecast demand and optimize inventory and shipping routes. 

On the manufacturing side, AI is being used for energy and resource optimization, improved production planning and predictive maintenance. 

“Through putting sensors in some of the critical equipment, [monitoring] vibration, temperatures, things like that … with enough information you can match these with your preventive maintenance, how frequent you have to give service to those motors or preventing them from breaking down.”

Logistically, AI allows real-time inventory and tracking management and dynamic delivery routing. 

“With dynamic routing, it's easier to plan every route every day, just in the right places they have to go, making distribution more effective,” he said. 

When it comes to product sales, Zarate observed that AI technology can be used for sales forecasting, pricing optimization and analyzing sales performance.