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A New AI-Powered Gemstone Identification App Is Here
Founder Vik Westermann said the app is a “starting point” to inspire people to work with appraisers and gem labs, not replace them.
In an interview with National Jeweler, Vik Westermann talked about his new app GemstoneAI, explaining its capabilities and outlining how he wants the technology to work with the jewelry industry, not compete with it.
New York—Earlier this year, a new AI-powered gemstone and jewelry identification app called GemstoneAI hit the market.
The app coaches users through the process of photographing their gemstone or piece of jewelry with the best angle and lighting and then uses two independent AI models to analyze, in real time, authenticity signals and treatment indicators to determine the stone type and its market value.
The app can identify more than 200 gem varieties, and for jewelry, it reads gold hallmarks and karat stamps.
Estimated values are drawn from live comparable sales data available online, rather than a static price chart.
The platform’s live market index covers 135 gem varieties and is refreshed daily.
Vik Westermann, whose career has spanned nearly a decade at PayPal, is the founder and sole operator of the app. He designed and engineered it.
Last year, after marrying a woman who is a sapphire dealer, he turned his focus to tech within the jewelry industry.
He launched GemstoneAI in April and shortly after, he attended the JCK Las Vegas show to get a feel for the trade, as well as gather feedback on the app and figure out how it could be improved.
The company is transparent about the fact that a phone camera can’t replace a gemological laboratory or produce a formal appraisal.
It also can’t determine origin or differentiate natural from lab-grown, two of several important variables that colored gemstone experts consider when pricing stones.
GemstoneAI functions best as a starting point, Westermann said. It can identify what the stone pictured most likely is.
Every identification also includes a confidence score and alternative possibilities for gemstones that have visual similarities to other gems, like garnet and spinel.
The app also has checks in place to alert users when the material they have photographed is potentially synthetic.
“If you have a 3-carat ruby that is just pristine, like completely flawless, that will actually trigger a flag in the system to say, stones like these are pretty rare and there is a potential that this could be a synthetic,” Westermann said.
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The app coaches users through the process of photographing their gemstone or piece of jewelry with the best angle and lighting and then uses two independent AI models to analyze, in real time, authenticity signals and treatment indicators to determine the stone type and its market value.
The app can identify more than 200 gem varieties, and for jewelry, it reads gold hallmarks and karat stamps.
Estimated values are drawn from live comparable sales data available online, rather than a static price chart.
The platform’s live market index covers 135 gem varieties and is refreshed daily.
Vik Westermann, whose career has spanned nearly a decade at PayPal, is the founder and sole operator of the app. He designed and engineered it.
Last year, after marrying a woman who is a sapphire dealer, he turned his focus to tech within the jewelry industry.
He launched GemstoneAI in April and shortly after, he attended the JCK Las Vegas show to get a feel for the trade, as well as gather feedback on the app and figure out how it could be improved.
The company is transparent about the fact that a phone camera can’t replace a gemological laboratory or produce a formal appraisal.
It also can’t determine origin or differentiate natural from lab-grown, two of several important variables that colored gemstone experts consider when pricing stones.
GemstoneAI functions best as a starting point, Westermann said. It can identify what the stone pictured most likely is.
Every identification also includes a confidence score and alternative possibilities for gemstones that have visual similarities to other gems, like garnet and spinel.
The app also has checks in place to alert users when the material they have photographed is potentially synthetic.
“If you have a 3-carat ruby that is just pristine, like completely flawless, that will actually trigger a flag in the system to say, stones like these are pretty rare and there is a potential that this could be a synthetic,” Westermann said.
Ultimately, GemstoneAI is designed to provide a handful of information, drawn from probability, about a user’s stone and its value at their own convenience, but it encourages them to seek out the expertise of jewelry industry professionals.
“What we also do within the app is provide—and this is a feature that I’m building out—a network of jewelers in your local area where you could take it to get properly appraised,” Westermann said.
When building GemstoneAI, Westermann expected that user curiosity would be the main driver for scanning gems or minerals.
However, the app’s usage data shows that most users scan finished jewelry rather than loose gemstones, led by rings, followed by pendants and necklaces, and then earrings, bracelets, and brooches.
Saved pieces become a portfolio whose value follows the gem and precious-metal markets over time, the company said.
Discovering how much their collection is potentially worth can nudge users into brick-and-mortar stores.
“Baby boomers are retiring, and a lot of that wealth is coming to the next millennial generation, [many of whom] have inherited a box of grandma’s jewelry.”
- Vik Westermann, GemstoneAI
“The customer who has already cataloged her jewelry box is one of the best customers a jeweler can see,” the company states in a fact sheet about the app.
“She arrives with questions that are worth money: appraisal, insurance, restyling, and the pieces she is ready to sell. We want her walking into the store, not past it.”
Being informed before walking into a store is a characteristic typically associated with Gen Z consumers, but the app’s millennial users also are gathering data beforehand as they scan jewelry that is passed down to them.
“There’s the entire concept of the great wealth exchange, where baby boomers are retiring, and a lot of that wealth is coming to the next millennial generation, [many of whom] have inherited a box of grandma’s jewelry,” Westermann said.
Much of what is scanned is estate inventory—an increasingly popular category for independent jewelers—that hasn’t reached the counter yet, the company notes.
GemstoneAI is available now in the Apple App Store and the Google Play store.
It is free to download and try.
Additional features, including unlimited scans, deeper analysis, and collection tracking, are available with a paid subscription only.
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