AI must serve the customer experience to deliver value in QSR
Focusing on high-value interactions will bring better profitability.
Artificial intelligence (AI) in quick-service restaurants delivers the most value when it visibly improves the customer's product and experience rather than optimising back-of-house operations the customer never sees, panellists from GOPIZZA, KPMG and Crunchtime discussed at a recent webinar hosted by QSR Media.
During the AI-Powered Restaurant: Driving Site-Level Adoption at Scale webinar, GOPIZZA founder and chief executive Jay Lim said customers ultimately want great products at great prices and uses artificial intelligence to communicate that to the customer.
One example is Go Vision, the proprietary technology GOPIZZA is built on that monitors every pizza created in the kitchen, measuring temperature, ingredients, and even the burnt marks on the pizza. The company shares that quality score with the customer alongside their order. That quality guarantee, Lim said, adds to the overall customer experience.
“Customers don't care about our inventory management. They don't care about our labour management. They only care about the product and the price of it and the experience of it,” Lim said. He added that most operators only focus on how to innovate in the kitchen and forget about the customers.
Emma Pitfield, partner at KPMG, added that operators should focus on the opportunity to connect the customer, operations and workforce layers together. Reflecting on her time in restaurant operations at McDonald’s, she said the ability to link personalised customer experiences with connected operational systems was what excited her most.
Pitfield gave the example of an operator with surplus inventory being able to market tailored offers to customers likely to buy those products, simultaneously solving an inventory issue, supporting the customer with a relevant offer, and making it easier for restaurant staff to create those bespoke offerings.
“You've got that ability to deliver a much better experience for your customers whilst really ensuring that your workforce and your operations can sustain that,” Pitfield said.
Nick Palamaras, commercial account executive at Crunchtime, said that technology must be balanced against the human experience. Recalling advice from a senior IT leader on how far digital transformation should go, he said the guidance was to take it far enough, but stop just before it gets scary. He explained this as using customer data to build a more connected experience without being too intrusive.
"I still think the human experience is the highest value when you're trying to drive a brand," Palamaras said, adding that quality of product and customer service remained key differentiators in a market shaped by food pricing pressures and global tariffs.
He said his conversations with operators consistently returned to moving staff away from administration and non-customer engagement toward what he called high-value interaction, which naturally drives better customer experience, higher guest return rates and greater profitability.
