Empower Your Hospitality Business with a Sales Automation System

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speaking of restaurants AI is now working its way into the industry as companies look for ways to become more efficient Kate Rogers is more on that story Kate hey good morning Melissa research from Cowan anticipates widespread adoption of AI for both voice ordering and kitchen robotics in the next 12 to 18 months for several reasons including a tight labor backdrop and unionization risks now restaurants that are or have tested that ordering technology include Yum brands Carl's Jr Hardee's and McDonald's for voice ordering one key aspect of the technology is upselling consumers in a way that humans might not be comfortable doing and also freeing up time for workers to interact with guests Panera is one company that's working with open City AI to test out voice ordering and it's also working with miso robotics using AI on its coffee to ensure a quality and Temperature Control so the two areas we're investing in is AI in our drive through which is really a voice enabled uh AI to help automate the ordering process and free up our Associates to be able to focus on high quality food production as well as guest interaction in the cafe the second is around our coffee quality and temperature control so a little less guest facing in terms of what they interact with but they benefit from the result of that AI helping us produce and provide a better quality and more consistent product now Chipotle has a similar use case with chippy also a miso robotics product its next iteration determines how many chips need to be made with AI technology and speaking with tech Executives from both of those companies really the emphasis seems to be on freeing up time for workers to interact more with guests and ensure that they really do have a better experience back over to you Kate um what are some of the downfalls and challenges in employing AI you always hear of it as sort of like a Panacea and the greatest thing since life spread yeah Melissa so a few things I've list franchisees at bigger companies like a McDonald's or a restaurant Brands International all getting on board and agreeing that it works so that's one thing language models was another thing that was brought up to me by Cowan they're tough to train not only in literally what language you're speaking but also on the nuances of the menu and ordering so you really have to have a well-trained language model there that understands all of that around customization and that changes restaurant roles as well in certain capacities so what does that look like for workers no one wants to be first right because they want to get it right but Andrew Charles account did mention to me that this kind of looks like what third party delivery looked like about five years ago right everyone was thinking about it some Brands were testing it out and guess what it's everywhere now with the exception of McDonald's rather which doesn't work with those third-party aggregators so everyone kind of thought about it and then jumped in in a big way and he expects AI to be the same thing yeah I was actually thinking of dominoes cake because they were really first in terms of automating a lot of of what how they do things and you know as dominoes out there is sort of a leader here I'm sure they're thinking about it but Domino's also you have to consider looks at this is kind of like a tech pipeline where things will be around for a really long time and again I don't think anyone wants to be first Melissa I think people really want to think about it in a very thoughtful way and get it right and make sure that not only are customers happy with what they're seeing but also workers right because this tight labor market is also a key factor here this can make things better you want to keep workers happy but the AI and the technology needs to be working in a way that works for them right so that they don't up and quit because they don't like what's going on