Deloitte: Restaurants take interest in AI
Restaurant executives are serving up artificial intelligence solutions in their enterprises.
Eight-in-10 (82%) restaurant executives surveyed by Deloitte plan to increase investments in AI technologies in the next fiscal year (2025-26). Leading anticipated benefits include improvements in customer experience (60%), restaurant operations (36%) and loyalty programs (31%).
Results of Deloitte “How AI is Revolutionizing Restaurants” also indicate 63% of respondents report current daily use of AI in aiding the customer experience, the most common use case. More than half (55%) use AI for daily inventory management and another 26% say they are engaged in customer experience pilots or other forms of limited implementation.
[READ MORE: EXCLUSIVE: Retailers look to AI for competitive advantage]
Concerns and risks
Respondents also identified a number of AI areas they feel pose potential issues:
- Identifying the right use cases and managing risks (48% each) are the top two factors holding back respondents from deploying AI, followed closely by technical skills (45%).
- Fewer than half of respondents say their organizations are ready for AI adoption when it comes to strategy (43%), technology infrastructure (39%), operations (34%), risk and governance (28%) and talent (27%).
- When considering the risks related to AI implementation, intellectual property issues (20%) and misuse of client/customer data (16%) were cited most often by those surveyed.
Respondents also identified aspects of AI they do not see as a major challenge:
- Lack of executive commitment (only 20% of respondents said it's holding them back).
- Choosing the right technologies (29%).
- Computing infrastructure or data (31%).
Overall AI readiness
- Strategy is the only area where most respondents say their companies are "highly" prepared, although almost 40% say they don't feel they have a strong strategy in place.
- Twenty-one percent of respondents across all segments and geographies believe they have the risk and governance in place to shepherd AI investments to fruition. Meanwhile, 29% say their organizations are prepared in terms of technology infrastructure, and 27% say they are prepared in terms of talent.
"As the restaurant industry appears to increasingly embraces AI, the journey to full-scale transformation is still a work in progress," said Evert Gravaert, restaurants and food service industry leader, Deloitte. "Leveraging AI to create personalized experiences and deeper connections with consumers can be an effective strategy. However, to unlock AI's potential, leaders will likely need to balance innovation and operational discipline, strengthen governance, and address capability gaps to help optimize operations, boost margins and future-proof their business — in both the front and back of house."
The Deloitte survey "How AI is Revolutionizing Restaurants" is based on a survey of 375 global restaurant executives in 11 countries.
