When it comes to artificial intelligence, restaurant veteran John Rankin is of two minds.
On one hand, said the senior director of Yum Brands franchisee Charter Foods, “there’s a lot of fluff” out there.
“I am always wary when someone starts saying, ‘We’re gonna sprinkle AI on top of this,’” he said. “You’re like, ‘What’s it really gonna do for me?’”
Then again, he knows from experience that AI can be more than just a buzzword. “When it’s done right, I feel like it’s going to be the next wave of technology, and there’s going to be endless use cases,” he said.
Rankin has taken what he calls an “operator-led” approach to AI at Charter’s 466 restaurants, which include Yum concepts Taco Bell, KFC and Pizza Hut Express as well as Long John Silver’s and A&Ws in more than nine states.
“We’re not sprinkling it on everything,” he said. “We’re taking what benefits the operator and keeping it behind the scenes.”
Recently, Tennessee-based Charter began testing an AI tool from restaurant tech supplier PAR Technology called Coach AI. It is a new addition to PAR’s Coach program, which Charter uses as a “one-stop shop” to track KPIs across all of its restaurants.
The AI allows Charter to dig deeper into that data using prompts. For instance, Rankin has asked it to analyze whether certain locations should stay open later or close sooner. Or, if sales are down at a specific store, he can ask it for insights into why that might be.
It’s not that Rankin couldn’t find those answers himself. But it would take a lot longer—maybe 30 minutes instead of five using AI. Over the course of days and weeks, that time adds up.
“In this industry, speed of analyzing data is real money,” he said.
Not only do the insights arrive faster, but they have also allowed Charter to be more decisive and get results.
“We’ve opened restaurants later [at night] that we may not have, just because the time to get that data gets significantly sped up, so we’re able to make that decision sooner versus later,” Rankin said.
Those restaurants, in turn, saw their late-night sales improve by 20%.
So, what does Rankin do with all the extra time the AI is saving him? He looks at more data, of course.
“I block a set amount of time to really go after KPIs,” he said. “If I could get done with it quicker and look at something that may have had to wait until the next day, again, that time is valuable.”
Tools that allow restaurants to “talk” to their data are becoming more common thanks to advances in generative AI. Rankin said he believes tools like these will eventually replace traditional business analytics.
Charter has been using Coach AI for about 90 days as part of a beta test. The program will automatically be included in Coach for new customers.
One area in which Charter is not using AI yet is in the drive-thru, although Taco Bell has rolled out voice AI at about 500 locations, with mixed results.
Rankin said he would not be surprised if Charter tested it at some point. He’s impressed by Bojangles’ use of the technology, for instance. But he’s not rushing into anything.
“It’s just a matter of layering it into our current tech stack needs and when it makes the most sense to get there,” he said. “Sometimes getting there first isn’t the way to go.”
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