AI means restaurants might soon know what you want to order before you do

What if a restaurant could know exactly what a guest likes to eat? What are your favorite wines? Do you even drink wine? How long do you like to dine? Do you order dessert? And with that knowledge, tailor a customized experience that satisfies the senses. 

“By taking the guesswork out of the actual technical part of taking your order, it allows us to put 100% of our hearts into making you feel welcome,” says Meyer, speaking at an event hosted by IBM at Manhatta, a fine dining restaurant owned by his Union Square Hospitality Group.

The Shake Shack founder says artificial intelligence can bring three key benefits to hospitality: increased revenue because restaurants will know more about their guests and how they like to spend, efficiencies to supply chain and other back-office operations, and helping restaurants provide greater hospitality by focusing more on guests and less on mundane tasks.

“Any great tech should advance touch,” says Meyer. “And I think hospitality is all about human touch.”

We now use our phones to order a coffee while out for a walk or track a delivery driver to the precise moment they will reach our doorstep. Robots are making burrito bowls at Chipotle and Sweetgreen’s salads. And AI is the latest innovation that’s upending how restaurants and diners interact. 

Much of the focus has been on AI-powered tools that recommend add-ons to an order. McDonald’s and IBM are using AI for drive-thru orders, though the response on social media earlier this year was lukewarm. IBM acquired McD Tech Labs from the world’s largest fast-food restaurant chain in 2021, and together, they’ve greatly lifted order automation rates where the tech has been deployed, giving recommendations that are a bit more sophisticated than “Do you want a…