How AI is driving personalization in restaurants? | Tangled AI
#AI has historically left its mark in data-driven sectors or the industries where data is the core component. Armed with its subsets including #deeplearning and #machinelearning, its outspread has been nothing short of massive since the last decade. Interestingly, it has started exerting influence even in industries that were perceived as non-data-driven or those that cannot be digitally transformed. One such industry where #artificialintelligence has displayed its efficiency is the restaurant industry. Do you know 95% of restaurant owners have accepted that the use of technology has surged up the efficiency of their business.
Restaurant businesses have been always considered difficult to manage and even tougher to succeed in. But with AI, restaurant businesses are becoming more proactive and are getting more successful. From creating a personalized profile based on the eating habits of customers to delivering food, AI is being instrumental in several operations of the restaurants. Let us dig deeper and understand how AI is enabling personalized service and remodeling the restaurant ecosystem.
Food recommendation systems
Post the onset of the pandemic, restaurants have turned to the online medium for business continuity. Apart from being part of food aggregators, many restaurants developed their own apps through which customers can order. About 64% of restaurants are optimistic about their future despite the challenges posed by the pandemic. The next obvious step for restaurants is to not compromise with the customer service.
Armed with AI models, based on the profile and location of the customers, restaurants offer personalized food recommendations to customers. Some apps are not just restricted to food recommendations but also offer restaurant recommendations depending upon their dining choices made in the past and the location of the customers.
A good example of AI offering personalized food service is the one by KFC. Collaborating with a Chinese search engine company called Baidu, KFC is working on an AI face recognition technology that offers personalized recommendations to its customers. AI facial recognition is capable of inferring what the customer is interested in from the mood, gender, and facial expression of the customer while going through the menu. Based on these outcomes, a personalized food profile is created for each customer.
SpeQue restaurant recommendation engine is another platform that offers personalized food choices by machine learning models and also uses historical data to check for items that pair the best with your choices.
Quality assessment of food
Availability of healthy food and its quality is a primary customer concern as conventional restaurants cannot analyze the constituents of the food. But AI can ensure adequate quality and health of food in your restaurant business. By tracking your dieting pattern and health status, AI systems identify the right calories to be included in your diet and paves way for healthy living.
AI video intelligence models are contributing to restaurants in assessing the quality of the food.
It scans for levels of harmful substances and pathogens in the food. Also, it infers the nutritional values and fat levels in the food from sensors, based on the health status of each customer. Now with the help of AI, You can know all the ins and outs of the nature of the food.
Tellspec, an AI company has designed a Tellspec Analytics system that identifies the calories, macronutrients, ingredients, and the whole nutritional value of the food. It is being used across restaurants in European countries.
Developing new cuisines
Wouldn’t it be great for restaurants to know beforehand that their products will be a home run before they hit the shelves? AI helps in this by assisting restaurants in the preparation of new recipes by intelligently combining ingredients. This can be a crowd-pulling innovation implemented by predictive analytics.
Gastrograph AI helps restaurants achieve their peak of innovation by using machine learning and predictive models. These algorithms model the flavor preferences of customers and ideate how well they respond to new tastes. These data can be then partitioned into demographic groups based on which restaurants develop new cuisines matching the preferences of their target audience.
AI personal assistants
About 54% of people believe that their life gets easier using AI personal assistants. AI assistants have now set foot in the restaurant industry to provide people with more personalized updates. AI-powered assistants provide information about new dishes, wait time, and undertake voice orders.
IndiaNIC, an AI development company has fostered innovations in the restaurant business by implementing AI solutions. It has led to the development of POS(Point of sale) systems that can take voice orders for swift ordering.
Personal assistants can also assist in preparing food and delivery in restaurants. The application of AI-driven robots hogged the limelight after a restaurant chain called Caliburger introduced a Personal AI-driven robot named Flippy. The robot was credited with preparing about 300 hamburgers a day. This led to the restaurant purchasing 50 more robots after sensing overwhelming customer support.
Stock inventory and waste management
Waste management is an important aspect of the restaurant industry and it may affect the ROI(Rate on investment)heavily. For every 1$ invested in waste management programs, restaurants save about 7$ in their operating costs. By using smart AI forecasting, businesses can reduce raw material purchases based on customer demand and weather conditions.
For instance, Winnow is an AI-integrated platform fostering smart innovations in waste management in restaurants. It uses #computervision models to keep track of waste disposals and forecasts the financial costs of disposals on a cumulative basis. And then it may help the restaurant with its purchase decisions, reducing its spending cost.
Final thought
AI is paving the way for tremendous changes in the food industry. However, it is a gradual process and restaurants have been known to use AI only in the last few years. With the pandemic coming into picture, all restaurants have been forced to undergo digital transformation that is bringing in personalized services to customers on platters.
AI personalization helps restaurants to amass a loyal customer base and expand their boundaries outside the market. However, adopting AI in the restaurant business requires the stakeholders to know the intricacies of AI. Simply adopting AI without an objective may turn counter-effective. Only the restaurants that are proactive and adapt to the latest trends can successfully embrace AI for personalization purposes.
