AI for Quick Service Restaurants
Automating for Efficiency
AI for Quick Service Restaurants
Automating for Efficiency
AI for Quick Service Restaurants
Automating for Efficiency
Goal & Purpose
AI can bring incredible efficiency and a better customer experience to Quick Service Restaurants. Customers can be recognized as soon as they approach the drive-thru, with orders taken via smart phone text messages or the standard audio order boxes, but now automated with LLM chatbots. This reduces errors, optimizes the workforce, and speeds throughput.
AI can enhance the dining room experience as well. Customers can order via smart chatbots Managers can be automatically alerted to queue levels and realtime inventory monitoring. AI video systems can alery managers to open table counts, overall cleanliness, and any hazard/spills.
Drive-thru Automation
Automatic Ordering
Customer Identification
AI Inventory Tracking
Drive-thru Automation
Build a human-like natural experience in the drive-thru. Our Interplay AI application platform can unify and enhance the entire drive-thru experience with voice recognition and automated menu ordering. This system includes voice-to-text, recognizes items with an LLM, and converses with voice and text back with the customer, all within a sub-second response.
Automation brings:Sub-second voices responses via LLMs and NLU
Cost-effective deployment on CPUs
Edge Deployment without network dependency
Operates even in noisy environments
Reduced order errors
Tracking real-time statistics for managers
Enables staff to focus on customers
Trainable menu for LLMs
AI Chatbots for Orders
Customer assistant chatbots can be powered by a specific vocabulary built by computer modeling of all existing auction texts with Natural Language Processing (NLP).
Hundreds of “intents” are recognized by the AI-chatbot: customers can order using plain-language text messages, find out about special offers, ask about their loyalty points, or find store information.
Easy Customer Identification
Interplay AI is trained to recognize and read license plates for registered customers. When these customers approach the drive-thru, their car is recognized and a confirmation is sent via text to their smartphone. If the order is already in the system, customers can proceed directly. All payment is handled through a completely touchless system, reducing fraud, speeding throughput, and giving the customer a much smoother experience.
Store Manager Applications
AI can be deployed to monitor tables, overall foot traffic in the dining area, count the number of bathroom visits and prompt for cleanings.
A Store Manager can get full visibility to overall customer flow, and receive alerts if any numbers (customer counts, inventory levels, sales velocity) vary from established patterns.
Curbside Pickup
Curbside pickup (also known as as ‘click and collect’) is now a basic requirement for many restaurants. When combined with instant text messaging, license plate recognition can make the operation smoother for the customer and the store staff:
Less crowding and faster responses
No need to make the customer text when arriving, staff are automatically alerted
Staff know to send each order to the cars as the customer enters the parking lot
Increased safety for both customers and staff
Smart Maintenance by Camera
Interplay AI can count people going into bathrooms and alert store associates when cleaning is needed by visually “seeing” spills on the floor or wastage left on tables. The system can even alert associate when guests are bunched up in a given location.
The Interplay AI can tap into existing video camera systems without major retrofit, and can be deployed quickly with edge servers that sit directly on the property. This system has high recognition, exceeding most other commercial systems.
AI Inventory and Replenishment
The Interplay AI application platform can tap into existing camera systems to monitor current inventory levels and overall kitchen throughput. AI pattern matching can give managers predictive analytics around customer flows and corresponding order levels. If the kitchen is behind, or if a sudden influx of customers enters the dining room, the system will alert the manager and prompt for appropriate inventory and replenishment adjustments.
Connect to Legacy POS Systems
Restaurant chains have an enormous investment into existing legacy POS systems that have functioned for years without major disruption. CTOs are faced with the challenge of protecting this investment while also incorporating new technologies to make sales as fast and easy as possible.
Interplay can connect modern AI engines to legacy systems that may not have APIs available: text scraping, RPA, ANSI feeds, etc. can all work inside an integrated low-code application flow.
AI/ML Classification for Data Gathered In-Store
There are many sources of data within a restaurant:
- Inventory management systems
- Order management and point-of-sales systems
- Customer mobile data from branded apps and 3rd party social apps
- AI computer vision recognizing congestion points and customer flows
Data from third parties, whether at the customer level interacting with apps or at the business level with different (and sometimes competing) actors all sharing data at different levels, the inbound potential is unstructured, duplicated, and unclear.
Iterate leverages AI/ML to automatically classify 3rd party data, structure the data based on patterns, and route the data according to internal rules.
Unified Store Platform
Optimal AI response is best served with on-premise servers for security and speed. In a franchised restaurant model, property owners may not be connected to a central data center.
Interplay runs on-premise with edge servers wherever remote or bandwidth constrained locations require AI and applications for the organization.
