Smell with Genji: Rediscovering Sensory Experience with an AI Co-Smelling Partner

Olfaction contributes substantially to human perception, yet the olfactory-verbal gap often leaves people struggling to articulate what they smell. We present Smell with Genji, an AI-mediated interactive experience adapting Genji-kō, a traditional Japanese scent-matching game. This practice maps comparative judgments across a sequence of scents onto Genji-mon, providing visual patterns as shared reference points for communication. Within this framework, we introduce an AI co-smelling partner integrating multichannel olfactory sensing, a Transformer-based classification model, and a large language model (LLM)-driven conversational interface to translate sensor signals into descriptive dialogue. Rather than deploying machine olfaction purely for identification, the system positions the AI as a co-present partner sharing its sensory impressions while human judgment remains open. Placing the machine's perspective alongside human intuition creates a space for shared reflection, encouraging participants to deliberately evaluate and articulate their choices. This work explores how computational systems can support sensory interaction grounded in dialogue, fostering reflective articulation and preserving human agency in making sense of the olfactory world.