9548 Wellington Circle, Suite #104, Windsor, CA, United States of America, 95492
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New AI Concierge Chatbot Delivers 24/7 Hospitality to Sell More Wine
Design Your Own Custom AI Concierge for FREE
Affordable pricing starts @ $69/mo
Websites, not tasting rooms, are the first point of contact for most consumer journeys.
Still, too many merchants greet website visitors with pretty pictures and pushy pleas to share personal contact info before they’re welcomed with any semblance of hospitality.
That’s why VinterActive created an AI Winery Concierge -- a multi-channel chatbot -- trained in the art and science of delivering attentive, personalized customer service 24/7.
Why Add an Affordable AI Concierge to Your Team?
| KEY BUSINESS BENEFITS | KEY MARKETING FEATURES |
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Custom Agent Personas
Express Your Unique Brand
From your agent's name, to job title, conversation style, and appearance, VinterActive AI Agents are ready to support any brand or any vibe.
Choose from a diverse selection of pre-built agent personas, or make your own.
Our step-by-step onboarding process makes it easy to design and train your ideal AI assistant.
Why use an online concierge?
The same reason you pay tasting room staff...to sell more wine!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bryan St. Amant, founder and CEO of VinterActive, holds an MS in Business Management from M.I.T. and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from U.C. Berkeley. He’s built AI-powered systems for governments, tech giants, and wine marketers. His award-winning work has been featured in books, magazines, and seminars, including CFO Magazine, Inc., CNN Money, eMarketing Magazine, Integrated Direct Marketing, Direct Marketing Association, Grapevine Magazine, Wine Marketing Report, Wine Business, and the Wine Industry Network.
AI Wine Marketing Solutions: Discerning Hype vs. Reality in 2025
Discover Pragmatic AI Tools to Help Wine Marketers in 2025
Cut through the hype with AI Wine Marketing News
Believe it or not, it's been two years since AI tools made their debut in DTC wine marketing.
First-generation tools, such as ChatGPT, found a productive niche in copywriting, image generation, and video production.
Now, "AI Agents" are stealing the headlines with hyped-up promises paired with perilous predictions of doom.
That's why VinterActive publishes AI Wine Marketing News -- a bi-weekly news digest -- featuring only trustworthy AI news items relevant to wine marketers.
CLICK HERE TO READ THIS WEEK'S EDITION
In this week's edition, we're featuring 5 news items:
- Apple: The Illusion of Thinking
- Salesforce AI Research: Study shows AI agents struggle with CRM and confidentiality
- Futurism: ChatGPT "Absolutely Wrecked" at Chess by Atari 2600 Console From 1977
- MIT Media Lab: Your Brain on ChatGPT
- Princeton: How to spot real value in AI — and avoid the snake oil
The first four articles address the limitations inherent in using AI wine marketing tools in 2025.
But, the fifth news item about avoiding "snake oil" claims while still extracting pragmatic value from today's AI technology is my favorite!
STAY IN THE AI WINE MARKETING LOOP
AI Wine Marketing News is available exclusively through LinkedIn and our Wine Marketing Blog.
If your business is looking to amplify the wine marketing results generated by your hard-working team, I invite you to book a meeting with us to cut through the hype and discover a pragmatic AI solution tailored to your needs.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bryan St. Amant, founder and CEO of VinterActive, holds an MS in Business Management from M.I.T. and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from U.C. Berkeley. He’s built AI-powered systems for governments, tech giants, and wine marketers. His award-winning work has been featured in books, magazines, and seminars, including CFO Magazine, Inc., CNN Money, eMarketing Magazine, Integrated Direct Marketing, Direct Marketing Association, Grapevine Magazine, Wine Marketing Report, Wine Business, and the Wine Industry Network.
AI Wine Marketing News - Subscribe for Free Now
Free Educational Resource from VinterActive
- Grow Your Business & Career -
"Let There Be Light!"For wine marketers navigating choppy waters, it’s hard to know if AI is friend or foe.
That’s why we publish AI Wine Marketing News.
In this free bi-weekly news digest, we sift through the hype to highlight AI news relevant to wine marketers.
WHY AI WINE MARKETING NEWS?
Our focus is on pragmatic uses of AI technology in the wine industry.
We only follow reputable news sources. We confirm the validity of all content we share, and analyze AI news with one question in mind: “What does this mean for wine marketers?”
If you think learning about AI might help your business or career, we invite you to subscribe at no cost.
THREE FREE WAYS TO SUBSCRIBE
LinkedIn: If you use LinkedIn, subscribe to “AI Wine Marketing News” here: https://www.linkedin.com/build-relation/newsletter-follow?entityUrn=7296203585329999872
Email: If your email reliably delivers content, click here to receive a bi-weekly email: https://www.vinteractive.com/subscribe-to-ai-wine-marketing-news
RSS/AI: If you use a newsreader or an AI assistant to crawl web pages for updates, add this source: https://www.vinteractive.com/blog
WANT TO SEE A SAMPLE?
Last week, we published our 10th edition of “AI Wine Marketing News,” now featured here: https://www.vinteractive.com/blog/2025/6/18/ai-wine-marketing-news-june-10-2025
Happy Selling!
Bryan St. Amant
VinterActive LLC
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bryan St. Amant, founder and CEO of VinterActive, holds an MS in Business Management from M.I.T. and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from U.C. Berkeley. He’s built AI-powered systems for governments, tech giants, and wine marketers. His award-winning work has been featured in numerous publications, including CFO Magazine, Inc., CNN Money, eMarketing Magazine, Integrated Direct Marketing, Direct Marketing Association, Grapevine Magazine, Wine Marketing Report, Wine Business, and the Wine Industry Network.
CEO's Corner: Pragmatic Uses of AI in Wine Business Management
Still mystified sorting AI hype from reality in the wine industry? Me too…
However, my vision improved greatly when I listened to this chat with MIT Professor Rama Ramakrishnan about the pragmatic applications of AI to existing businesses.
In under an hour, I understood more about how LLMs work and how to augment them for business use than I’ve learned in days of consuming online content.
As a bonus, his Generative AI Cost Equation sheds light on how leaders can evaluate real-life AI business decisions.
When you’re in the mood, pour a glass of something tasty and be prepared to learn from one of the world’s best. Here’s the link: https://sloanreview.mit.edu/video/getting-payback-from-generative-ai/
Cheers! 🍷
Bryan St. Amant
Founder & CEO
VinterActive LLC
NEED HELP WITH AI WINE INDUSTRY INITIATIVES?
VinterActive has advised thousands of wineries over the last 20 years and has built AI business systems for even longer. Book a 30-minute meeting to discuss your needs here.
Meet Miri: AI Advisor Helps Any Wine Marketer for FREE!
AI Wine Marketing Agents Help Small Brands Innovate
The AI revolution has finally come for DTC wine marketers!
We’re not talking about creepy 6-fingered hands or generic copy generated at the speed of AI.
Today’s AI wine marketing agents combine speed and fluency with expert training to help small teams outperform with better ideas and faster implementation, thanks to the assistance of AI.
WHY WORK WITH AN AI MARKETING AGENT?
It’s no secret that the majority of direct-to-consumer (DTC) wineries are small brands, lucky to have even a part-time marketing team.
Despite working miracles on non-existent budgets, the most challenging part of being a solo DTC wine marketer is often working alone without the benefit of professional colleagues you can brainstorm with.
That’s why we built Miri: DTC Wine Marketing Advisor
HOW CAN MIRI HELP?
Miri’s extensive training includes 20 years of proprietary DTC wine marketing data, focusing on best practices in tasting room, wine club, e-commerce, email, and SMS wine marketing.
And since Miri is based on OpenAI’s ChatGPT 4, you can ask Miri to act as a strategist, a tactician, a copywriter, a sounding board, or a personal assistant, helping you stay on track with:
- Brainstorming
- Writing/editing
- Designing workflows
- Analyzing pros/cons
- Personalized checklists & reminders
HOW TO GET THE MOST OUT OF YOUR AI AGENT
Since AI Agents work differently than traditional business software tools, here are some important tips on getting the most out of your collaboration with Miri:
- Treat Miri more like an eager marketing intern than a piece of business software
- When asking for Miri’s help, provide business context so Miri understands your goals and constraints
- If Miri’s ideas are off-base, tell Miri why, then ask Miri to ask you any further questions needed to provide better results
- Offer constructive feedback so Miri can learn to support you better over time
- AI Agents can make mistakes. Please review their work, since you’re still the human in the loop.
Happy Selling!
Wine Marketers: You’re Probably Using AI Wrong
Wine Marketers: You’re Probably Using AI Wrong
Here's the way to work with your AI Marketing Assistant...
Earlier this year, I leaned into GenAI to learn how it might help wine marketers survive a challenging time.
Like many wine marketers, I initially viewed AI as another traditional business tool.
I’d ask a question (input) and wait for the computer’s answer (output).
Results? Sometimes insightful or artful, but often decidedly less so.
It turns out I was using GenAI wrong when I first approached this unique beast.
Here's what I learned...
WORKING WITH AI AS A COLLEAGUE...NOT A TOOL
Working with GenAI as a colleague, instead of using it as a tool, made all the difference in the world for me.
Instead of simply saying “write a business plan,” I ask my AI assistants to ask me questions about my goals and limitations, enabling them to do their best work tailored to my needs.
Then the give-and-take of my conversations with GenAI sparked original ideas — ideas that I wouldn’t have thought of without GenAI’s help.
And the more we learned from each other, the better our ideas became.
That’s a huge deal…when AI enhances human agency instead of replacing it.
Soon, I educated my AI Agents on the best practices of DTC wine marketing, and my AI assistants started generating ideas, schedules, and checklists we could follow together as we turned plans into action.
The result: a revolutionary new family of AI-powered DTC wine marketing agents built from scratch in a few months with the help of AI collaboration.
WHY CHANGE THE WAY YOU USE AI?
In a recent Harvard Business School study of small marketing teams within Procter & Gamble, researchers found that collaboration with GenAI made one-person teams more productive than two-person teams that did not collaborate with AI.
The implication for small wine brands is that they can out-innovate much larger brands.
Not only did one-person marketing teams paired with AI come up with more innovative ideas, but they also completed their work faster and reported better job satisfaction.
SO THAT GOT ME THINKING...
Could an AI Agent explicitly trained in the best practices of DTC wine marketing help my colleagues who work for small wine brands?
Of course, I asked GenAI to brainstorm this idea with me…
And what we came up with was Miri: a DTC Wine Marketing Advisor – a free AI Agent designed to help even small wine brands innovate faster.
MEET MIRI: AI-POWERED DTC WINE MARKETING ADVISOR
Our concept with Miri was to combine the communication skills of an LLM with the experience and knowledge of a DTC wine marketing expert to produce an AI assistant that can help small brands compete against larger rivals.
And now any DTC wine marketer looking for an AI sounding board can work with Miri for free.
We hope Miri – and our entire AI Agent team – can help you develop ideas, focus on the best marketing techniques to achieve your goals, and assist you in profiting from professionally-planned multi-channel marketing campaigns.
In exchange, I hope you’ll help our team learn to help others by providing constructive feedback.
WANT TO LEARN MORE ABOUT PRODUCTIVE WAYS TO WORK WITH AI AGENTS?
Stanford's Jeremy Utley shared his own similar experience as he learned to engage AI as a colleague in his engaging YouTube video, “You Are Using AI Completely Wrong.”
If you’re looking for a true productivity boost from AI, watch this 13-minute video. Key Insights:
📌How treating AI as a teammate rather than just a tool can dramatically improve outcomes
📌Why you should have AI ask you questions instead of just answering yours
📌How non-technical professionals can leverage AI to achieve extraordinary results
📌The difference between treating AI as a tool versus as a teammate
And if you’re on LinkedIn and want to learn more about the quickly evolving world of AI Wine Marketing Agents, please subscribe to our free newsletter, AI Wine Marketing News.
This is just the beginning of AI innovation in the wine industry. Now’s the time to lead, follow, or get out of the way.
Happy Selling!
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Bryan St. Amant, founder and CEO of VinterActive, holds an MS in Business Management from M.I.T. and a BS in Mechanical Engineering from U.C. Berkeley. He’s built AI-powered systems for governments, tech giants, and wine marketers. His award-winning work has been featured in books, magazines, and seminars, including CFO Magazine, Inc., CNN Money, eMarketing Magazine, Integrated Direct Marketing, Direct Marketing Association, Grapevine Magazine, Wine Marketing Report, Wine Business, and the Wine Industry Network.
SNEAK PEEK: New AI Wine Marketing Team Coming Soon
Free AI Agents Help DTC Marketers Innovate Faster & Boost Sales
It’s a jungle right now for DTC wine marketers tasked to invent new ways to win consumer loyalty amid brutal competition and declining demand.
The good news – especially for the thousands of small and mid-size brands that define our industry – is that affordable AI Wine Marketing Agents can now help any size team outcompete rivals with better ideas and faster implementation of winning campaigns.
That’s why VinterActive built the industry’s first family of expert AI Agents trained in the best practices of DTC wine marketing.
Meet the Team Now
The world premiere of our first five agents is at this year’s Wine Sales Symposium on May 14, 2025 in Santa Rosa, CA.
But, you can grab a sneak peek using this private link: https://www.vinteractive.com/ai-powered-wine-marketing-agents
Whether you “Ask Miri” for DTC wine marketing advice, “Ask Leah” for SMS advice, or “Ask Nico” about wine pairings, you’ll get a taste of how expert AI Agents can help you accelerate your success.
And this is only the beginning:)
Happy Selling!
AI Wine Marketing Agents: 4 Free Ways They Can Help You in 2025
With the hype surrounding AI, it’s hard to know what news matters to today’s DTC wine marketers.
I suspect most of us tried using AI for content creation a couple of years ago.
But what has AI done for wine marketers lately, besides confusing us with too many models and few pragmatic uses?
The good news is that, amid the usual noise about AI condemning us to a life of misery, the last few months have provided wine merchants with a new generation of valuable survival tools in the form of powerful AI Agents.
What the Heck is an “AI Agent?”
Leading business productivity tools – including Salesforce, OpenAI, JotForm, and Zapier – now offer their unique interpretations of “AI Agents” that can amplify the results of any sales or marketing team.
Intriguing use cases in the wine industry include AI-powered sommeliers, social media assistants, DTC marketing management, and public-facing chatbots, all of which are empowered to represent your brand and assist customers on your behalf.
Why Use AI Agents?
Outside of the wine industry, successful retail brands such as Sephora, Domino’s, and 1-800-Flowers all report double-digit gains when using AI-powered customer service agents, including reduced product returns, increased average order size, and higher online sales revenue.
But, with costs ranging from free to $20K/mo – coupled with training expenses and a steep learning curve – it’s hard for most wine merchants to know where to start evaluating the potential benefits of adding AI Agents to their DTC marketing mix.
That’s why we performed a preliminary investigation for you…
FINDING THE Best AI Agents for DTC Wine Marketers
All wine merchants are driven by their unique ambitions, interests, and operational constraints. But with DTC sales transactions plummeting nationwide, while typical wine marketers struggle with meager budgets and wear too many hats, our evaluation focused on which AI Agents deliver the “best bang-for-the-buck” for an average U.S. winery in 2025.
Here’s our expert analysis:
OpenAI/Salesforce Agents
Using our “best bang-for-the-buck” criteria, we immediately ruled out OpenAI and Salesforce Agents, because most DTC wine merchants have neither the budget nor time to experiment with $20,000/month AI Agents or tech-heavy learning curves.
If you’re the exception, your organization probably has at least one AI initiative underway.
To propose another AI-powered wine marketing initiative, you can’t go wrong following the generative AI cost equation proposed by MIT Professor Rama Ramakrishnan, here: https://sloanreview.mit.edu/video/getting-payback-from-generative-ai/
Zapier AI Agents
Zapier’s AI Agents, however, offer a compelling entry-point for DTC wineries, especially if they already use Zapier for other purposes.
If you already know how Zapier links multiple data sources to automate high-value workflows, and since the incremental cost/training required to deploy a Zapier Agent is minimal, they’re an excellent choice for AI experimentation.
Their superpower is utilizing AI to make business decisions based on your criteria and then taking action – processing an order, triggering an email, text, or social media post, escalating an issue, or preparing management reports automatically 24/7.
Of all the “affordable” AI Agents released in the last few months, Zapier Agents are the most capable but come with a steeper learning curve.
Jotform AI Agents
Smaller businesses with tight budgets or individual wine marketers looking to leverage AI Agents can’t go wrong by starting with Jotform’s new AI Customer Service Agents, released in February 2025.
Their sweet spot is delivering customer service across multiple marketing channels, including chatbots, mobile apps, voice, email, phone, SMS, Messenger, and more.
Although Jotform AI Agents use ChatGPT to converse in natural language, 100% of their “knowledge” is provided by you in the form of FAQs, uploaded documents/links, and live training sessions where you ask questions and grade the answers provided by your Agent – training them over time, much like your favorite marketing intern.
Jotform’s affordable pricing plans – starting @ $0/mo for five agents – make it easy to justify a thorough evaluation if you’re ready to discover how AI Agents can help your brand and career achieve new heights of success in 2025.
4 FREE Ways Wine Marketers Can Use AI Agents NOW
If you want to dip your toe into the growing sea of AI agents, it helps to align your marketing goals with your agent's strengths. In the case of Jotform AI Agents, their strengths align with four wine marketing use cases:
Answering FAQs posed by website visitors
Telling your brand story
Growing your SMS/email lists
Recommending which wines pair best with food or special occasions
If you or your staff spend time answering common customer questions, and want to explore how AI wine marketing can help you achieve your goals, Jotform’s new AI Agents can open the door to a whole new world of possibilities.
Happy Selling!
Subscribe to AI Wine Marketing News (It's Free & Informative)
ATTENTION: WINE MARKETERS
It's official, the 2nd generation of AI wine marketing tools has finally arrived!
In our view, we can either learn how to master AI, or there's a decent chance AI will master us.
That's why VinterActive created a FREE LinkedIn Newsletter -- AI Wine Marketing News -- not to sell our products and services but to help our friends and neighbors in wine country understand the new AI tools that can help your business and career thrive in 2025 and beyond.
Subscribers to our newsletter receive an expertly curated bi-weekly summary of AI news relevant to wine marketers, wine business owners, researchers, and any professional exploring the intersection of wine marketing and our industry's rapidly evolving AI toolset.
Some say AI technology will be as essential as electricity or the steam engine.
We won't go that far yet, but it reminds us of the dawn of personal computing. If you've never experienced what a new technology like this can do for your business and career, buckle up and enjoy the ride...
Happy Selling!
"Let There Be Light"
SNEAK PEEK: AI-Powered Wine Marketing Agents @Unified – Booth #A2715
The Future of Wine Marketing is Here
What will you name your first AI Wine Marketing Agent?
Wine marketers attending this week’s Unified Wine & Grape Symposium in Sacramento are in for a special treat when visiting Booth #A2715 featuring VinterActive LLC’s all-new:
- AI-Powered Wine Marketing Agents
- VinQuest™ Wine Marketing Research
- All-in-One SMS Signup Widget
- SimpleTexting for Vinoshipper, Commerce7 & WineDirect
The future of wine marketing is here! If you’ll be in Sacramento, c’mon by and say hello😊
ABOUT VINTERACTIVE
Established in 2002, VinterActive LLC is a wine industry leader in the research and practice of DTC sales and marketing. VinterActive’s award-winning PreferencePro™ automated wine marketing systems have sold millions of dollars of wine for large and small merchants across the U.S.
About
Our Mission
VinterActive began in 2002 with the goal of helping wineries succeed by leveraging the best practices of consumer direct marketing.
A pioneer in DTC wine marketing, VinterActive has served as a trusted partner to hundreds of U.S. wineries providing original research, innovation and software solutions that have helped more wineries sell more wine than anyone else in the business.
While marketing methods have changed over the years, our commitment remains the same: to deliver the tools, knowledge and service you need to maximize your share of the wine industry's fastest growing sales channel.
Bryan St. Amant
Founder & CEO
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Location List
| Locations | Address | State | Country | Zip Code |
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| VinterActive LLC | 9548 Wellington Circle, Suite #104, Windsor | CA | United States of America | 95492 |
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