The AI Understanding Gap: Why Restaurant Leaders Are Afraid to Start

Adam Brotman I completely agree. think about this. You're like, order, speed, order, aim. It's a methodology for applying a synthetic intelligence into your workflow and into your products.

There's been no precedent for this. There's not. There's been computer tools. There's been people you can hire.

There's been all these new technologies that have come along. But there's never been anything like this. This is like science fiction in a way. It really is.

It's weird to even say this on this podcast because it really is like science fiction. It's like, oh, there's this emerging semi-sentient alien intelligence that's getting smarter, changing every day. I know I should be tapping into it, I have to come up with some new. methodology.

I got to unlearn things. I got to learn new things. I can break things in the process. Like no wonder everybody's sort of using consultants and needs help and is afraid.

And yeah, we do have a methodology for it. Andy Sack This is AI First with Adam and Andy, the show that takes you straight to the front lines of AI innovation and business. I'm Andy Sack and alongside my co-host, Adam Brotman. Each episode, we bring you candid conversations with business leaders, transforming their businesses with AI.

No fluff, just real talk, actionable insights for you. Today's mini episode, we're going to talk about the restaurant AI understanding gap and attempt to give you an understanding of what we're learning by talking to executives at restaurant chains across the country. Welcome everybody. Adam, how are you?

want to today's episode off with a story that you and I were just talking about when you were talking to a CEO of a potential client of ours. want to share that story with the audience? Adam Brotman So first of all, when we talk about restaurant CEOs or restaurant leaders versus other industries, of course, there's a bunch of stuff that makes restaurants unique. It's a unique kind of business.

⁓ They are cousin of retail and retail services, but, you know, they're their own thing. The other thing that makes them unique, though, besides being restaurants when others aren't restaurants, is that they tend to focus on being really good at concentrating their efforts at guest experiences, the food, the service, the ambiance, the location. That's what a restaurant operator is good at. They're not good at technology, Some of them are.

I don't mean to be too broad, but it's not their forte. So their forte is going to be, as you'd want them to be, more around the guest experience across the board. So I was talking to this CEO of a decent-sized restaurant chain, fast casual, and And he said he had just gotten back from a restaurant conference. He's like, oh, Adam, we need you.

Like, we need you. The industry needs you. I'm like, OK, I'm here. What do you need?

And he's like, all the talk at the conference was about AI. It wasn't an AI conference. was a restaurant conference. We're all talking about AI.

And we're all freaked out and afraid. And we need consultants. I was like, said, stop, Todd. What do you mean afraid?

I kind of get it. But tell me more about what you're afraid of that's an interesting emotion. And he said, We don't know really what to start. a year ago, we just didn't know what we didn't know.

And so AI was this thing, but we weren't like afraid because we didn't even understand it. We now understand enough to know this is powerful. This isn't hype. And like we should be tapping into it, but we don't really know where to start.

And we're afraid that we're going to like start at the wrong place. And we might break something. like, like obviously break something includes giving away confidential information or breaking some production system that screws up. their business and their guest experience, which is what they're so protective of as they should be.

And I was like, that's really interesting that that's the case. They don't know where to start. Right. So they're and it's interesting because you think about like if you're a restaurant leader, you're on the one hand, you're thinking like, I should be like doing things like AI in the drive through or like Papa John's just released this voice AI concierge in their app.

called Loo AI, like is that what we're supposed to be doing? Like things like ordering AI, like integrating into our ordering flows on drive through our app, or are we supposed to be using it for backup house stuff? And how do we do that when our data is not very cleaned up? So that's kind of what's going on in their head.

And I just thought it was interesting that, you know, they don't know what to do. There's another example that I'm going to give you that's related, but different, where we were talking to another C-suite member of another restaurant chain and they were like, know, our CEO says AI is powerful. I don't know where to start on it. Same kind of theme, but I just know like there's no way this thing isn't real and there's no way we couldn't be getting a lot of efficiencies out of it.

So why are we hiring people before we become AI first? So he said, I'm going to stop hiring. And I was like, these are like not the same story, not the same company, obviously, but they're related in that you've got you've got now the restaurant leader sort of they can kind of squint their eyes and go, can feel this thing, but I don't know where to start. And I want to comment on it, but I want to get your thoughts on like when you hear that, like what's your reaction?

I have, I have some thoughts. Andy Sack Yeah, I mean, you share that you share that story with me. And it's very similar to what we've, you know, I would say at forum three, we've been evolving on methodology and writing a lot. And we've come up with this methodology, which is speed order aim.

And when I hear the story that you tell about the CEO who is afraid, he's basically saying, we don't know where to start, we don't know how fast to go. He doesn't really say where to aim, but like in many ways aim comes after the speed and order. And what do we mean by that? What we mean is, and we have this conversation, like everybody knows that AI is a big deal and it's important and that they're largely, everyone sort of feels insecure about their capability set.

⁓ and the level of training. so the question is, how fast should we be moving in relation to broadly AI digital transformation? and then in what order, where do we, where do we, where do we start and in what order do we go, which department, which workflows, those are the questions. So when I hear the story, it really plays into, which we developed that methodology really, because we've been consulting in the space.

for the last three plus years. it was really this moment in January when agents came out and we entered the agentic era that we felt like we needed to update our methodology. And so that's what I hear. Adam Brotman And I completely agree.

think about this. You're like, order, speed, order, aim. It's a methodology for applying a synthetic intelligence into your workflow and into your products. There's been no precedent for this.

There's not. There's been computer tools. There's been people you can hire. There's been all these new technologies that have come along.

But there's never been anything like this. This is like science fiction in a way. It really is. It's weird to even say this on this podcast because it really is like science fiction.

It's like, oh, there's this emerging semi-sentient alien intelligence that's getting smarter, changing every day. I know I should be tapping into it, I have to come up with some new. methodology. I got to unlearn things.

I got to learn new things. I can break things in the process. Like no wonder they're everybody's sort of using consultants and needs help and is afraid. And yeah, we do have a methodology for it.

But it's interesting how, like I want to talk about one thing in that whole new methodology that we have that you just mentioned, which is the unlock, because it's like, that's the aim, right? So speed is like, get off, you know, don't be Don't be a deer in the headlights. Start learning this stuff. Start getting at least a group of people that are taking advantage of this stuff so you can get efficiencies.

You can start to get some growth on the top lines, some optimization of things in the middle of your business and your customer experience. And start figuring out what order to stack rank those things. That's the order of speed order. And then aim is going to end up being some unlock.

You're going to start doing this, and you're going to realize like, what are the one or two things in the order that actually are game changing that weren't possible before AI? And you want to get there because that's the innovative side of this whole thing. Like the rest of it is super important. Andy Sack And what can you give people an example of what that might be?

Particularly for restaurants. Adam Brotman Yeah, so I'll give it my favorite example. This is like giving away free alpha for restaurants. This is now some of the stuff that we consult on.

I say that humbly, because I don't know if it's any good, but people can be the judge. I actually, at the risk of, I don't want to offend Papa John's. I actually know some of the people there, and they're really smart. They know what they're doing.

I'm not convinced in the app. an ordering AI is an unlock. actually think in the drive-through, an ordering AI is an unlock. I'm gonna explain what I mean.

You're on your phone, Am I really struggling when I'm on my phone to figure out how to tap my way and add to my cart and customize my pizza or my coffee if I'm Starbucks or whatever? Like, no, it's really not my problem. It's not the pain the customer's going through. Could it be, I can like...

you know, add some concierge on my app, like, okay, but in the drive through, it's different in the drive through, you've got language differences, you've got, like, you know, the opportunity to redeploy labor of the person at the window and on the headset to like being able to take care of the customers and do a better job inside. And so if I can sort of take that distraction, that labor away from the window and redeploy it towards the customer experience and add to order accuracy, speed, language understanding and upsell.

Like that's a that's an unlock. And those are two they look the same. But if you actually like understand what the AI could be doing, drive through is much more of an unlock than the app. That's just an example of like aim.

Like, but you're not going to know that. Like if I just went to someone who wasn't AI proficient in the restaurant industry, they're going to think, that's so cool. Like, you know, you did, you're going to add concierge voice ordering to your app. Like That's amazing.

Like it just sounds innovative. And I'm not saying it's not smart. I might get proven wrong. And it's like, my God, Starbucks, think is planning on doing something like this.

And obviously Papa John's is. But I'm saying, like, for example, I probably wouldn't start at the app. I'd start at the drive through, for example. I'll give you another example.

I might start. I might be like the ordering experience isn't a problem necessarily. Let's go to. Something that's a bigger problem, which is like value.

Like how do you use AI to sort of do price optimization and bundle marketing for the customer in a way that can be totally personalized that you couldn't do without AI. That's a huge unlock for the business or even helping out the store managers, which are like the most important thing in the whole system to give them like their own agent so they can have like superpowers and you don't have to wait for the district manager to get to them, you know, 10 days later. And so like those are examples in the restaurant industry of where's the real unlock versus just bolting on AI to whatever.

and then that's different from all the back office stuff that is also possibly a big unlock like labor scheduling optimization or inventory optimization. So you just got to like, for your business, your unlocks going to be different and you're not going to get there till you've done what you just said, like get on it quick, get proficient, start. figuring out the order of things that you might want to start playing with and applying AI to, and then make your way to the aim at the unlock Andy Sack this episode reduced the fear that some of our listeners might be experiencing in relation to AI.

You're going to hear more about Adam and I talking about speed, order, and aim, as well as this AI unlock, because it's tied to the aim. In this episode, hopefully you got a little bit of a sense of where that might apply in the restaurant industry, With that, thank you all for listening to AI First with Adam and Andy. For more resources on how to become AI First, you can visit our website, www.forum3.

com, download case studies, research, briefing, executive summaries, and join our email list. We also invite you to connect with our AI First community, a curated hub and network for leaders turning AI hype into action. We truly believe you can't over-invest in your AI learning. onward.