Recently, the potential to create functional materials from various forms of organic matter has received increased interest due to its potential to address environmental concerns. However, the process of creating novel materials from biomass requires extensive experimentation. A promising means of predicting the properties of such materials would be the use of machine-learning models trained on or integrated into self-learned experimental data and methods. We outline an automated system for the discovery and characterization of novel, sustainable, and functional materials from input biomass. Artificial intelligence provides the capacity to examine experimental data, draw connections between composite composition and behavior, and design future experiments to expand the system's understanding of the studied materials. Extensions to the system are described that could further accelerate the discovery of sustainable composites, including the use of interpretable machine-learning methods to expand the insights gleaned from to human-readable materiomic insights about material process-structure-functional relationships.