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Juul Applies for Patent of an AI-Powered Device That Restricts Nicotine

In what will be considered by many the latest in a series of attempts aimed at winning the public’s favour, Juul has applied for a patent of a device powered by artificial intelligence, which could help users quit "juuling" by reducing their daily nicotine consumption.

Diane Caruana

April 6, 2020

The device would be connected to a smartphone, would learn how often and how much nicotine one vapes and determine how and when to substitute the non-nicotine accordingly.

The patent application describes the device as working “in communication” with a vaporizer (used to vape nicotine) and would alternate nicotine and a similar, non-nicotine product, such as citric acid, to gradually reduce the user’s nicotine intake. The application says that the “controller may apply machine learning to adjust delivery of nicotine and/or non-nicotine vaporizable material” based on the users’ behavior (using a “plurality of puffs”) and that the behavior “may be learned through monitoring the vaporizer use and behavior of the user.”

In other words, after the device which could be connected to a smartphone “learns” how often and how much nicotine one vapes, it would determine how and when to substitute the non-nicotine accordingly. This would result in decreasing the amount of nicotine vaped in order to wean one off slowly.

Juul’s co-founder and chief product officer, James Monsees, said that in 2018 the company was planning a smartphone-connected device which would have authenticated users to help them quit if they wanted to. “There will be a machine learning algorithm that’s going to smooth that out for you, so that you don’t even really have to think about it you request it. But we make it as easy for you as possible,” Monsees said at the time.

Under attack

Meanwhile, Juul has been incessantly accused by lawmakers, health entities and angry parents alike, of fueling the current alleged teen vaping “epidemic”. Since its merger with Altria the manufacturer has understandably lost credibility as having harm reduction at heart, and been on the receiving end of multiple lawsuits.

To this effect, the San Francisco-based manufacturer has been doing its utmost to win the public’s favour. In another effort to tackle the high rates of use by teens, last month, Juul also announced plans of an age locking technology. The plan is to launch a device with an age verification system that unlocks for use only to people who are at least 21 years of age.