AI is no longer just a futuristic concept. We even highlighted it in our 2023 food service industry trends series. AI it’s a technology used in various industries to streamline processes, improve customer experiences, and increase efficiency. This article will explore how AI can be used in the restaurant industry and give practical tips for implementing it in your day-to-day food service operation.

First things first: What’s Artificial Intelligence (AI)?

Allowing automated decision-making without needing direct human input. Artificial intelligence typically involves taking large amounts of data from available sources – whether online tools, customer feedback forms, or internal data – using sophisticated algorithms to create predictions about customer behavior or operational efficiencies. AI can also be used for various marketing activities, such as driving personalization, targeting customers with relevant promotions in real-time, or automatically identifying trends across multiple ranges of customers.

How can your restaurant take advantage of AI tools?

Incorporating AI-powered Language models like ChatGPT, Jasper, or the recently announced Bard by Googleand image generation AI like Midjourney or Dall-e 2, among others, can be game changers for restaurant operators looking to tap into AI's many advantages.

Why? By automating repetitive tasks and providing valuable and engaging content, restaurant operators can focus on growing their businesses and providing the best customer experience possible. AI can also help with copywriting —an area where many food business operators struggle— analytics and idea generation based on specific needs, context, and information.

Let’s briefly discuss some ideas about how your restaurant can use artificial intelligence (AI) to its advantage.

1. Personalizing the customer experience

One of AI's most significant advantages is its ability to personalize customer experiences. Using data collected from customer interactions, AI can make recommendations and offer personalized service, such as recommending dishes based on customers’ previous orders or dietary restrictions, thus improving customer experience. A good idea to help you tap into this advantage is data labeling to classify and organize the collected data from customer interactions.

2. Streamlining operations

Another way AI can benefit restaurants is by streamlining processes. For example, an AI-powered system could manage inventory, track orders, and predict future demand. This can help restaurants to optimize their operations and reduce waste.

An AI-powered inventory management system could predict when certain ingredients are running low and automatically order more from suppliers. This can save time and resources and help restaurants to stay supplied with ingredients during peak times.

3. Enhancing your restaurant’s online presence

In today’s digital age, having a solid online presence is crucial for any business —especially if you have your online ordering website to capitalize on that online presence. AI can help restaurants to enhance their online presence and reach a wider audience. Think of the likes of content creation for social media, blog posts, image generation, review replies, etcetera.

With Deliverect Social Media Ordering, you can now sell your restaurant's food through Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram. Learn more.

Utilizing AI-powered Language models like ChatGPT

One of the most versatile and powerful ways restaurants can use AI is by utilizing AI-powered language models like ChatGPT. These models can be used for various tasks, from automating customer service to creating engaging content for your restaurant’s website and social media channels.

For example, using ChatGPT, restaurants can automate responding to customer inquiries through chat or email. The AI-powered model can be trained to understand the specific language and tone of the restaurant’s brand and provide accurate and personalized responses. This can improve the customer experience and allow restaurant staff to focus on other tasks.

Additionally, ChatGPT can create high-quality, engaging content for the restaurant’s website and social media channels. This content can include menu descriptions, customer testimonials, and even blog posts about the restaurant’s history and specialties. By providing valuable and engaging content, restaurants can attract more customers and improve their online presence.

Before moving into that, let’s step back and get more definitions.

What Is ChatGPT?

Chat GPT is one of the most prominent AI tools that is hitting the news and social media worldwide. 

Simply put, it is a chatbot that interacts conversationally. You ask, and it answers. 

ChatGPT is fine-tuned from GPT-3.5, a language model trained to produce text. ChatGPT was optimized for dialogue by using Reinforcement Learning with Human Feedback (RLHF) – a method that uses human demonstrations to guide the model toward desired behavior. —OpenAI

We asked ChatGPT to introduce itself using restaurant analogies:

• Imagine a bustling restaurant where the chef whips delicious dishes to satisfy hungry customers. Imagine the chef has a secret weapon in the kitchen, a sous chef with a limitless wealth of knowledge and experience. This sous chef is none other than ChatGPT, the language model developed by OpenAI. ChatGPT is like the master mixologist of language, able to blend words and content to create a response that is informative and beautifully crafted. With its transformer architecture, ChatGPT can understand the nuances of language, much like the chef understands the flavors and ingredients that make a dish come alive. And just like a chef who continuously tastes and adjusts their dishes, ChatGPT continues to learn and improve with each interaction, ensuring its responses are always up to par.

Yes,an AI wrote all that to introduce itself through an analogy that you — a food service expert – could understand.

Using ChatGPT daily as a restaurant or dark kitchen operator

As you’ll learn ChatGPT works through prompts that tell the AI how to behave and the type of answer you’re looking for. The more complete, well-structured, and explicit your prompt, the better answer(s) you’ll get. It all starts with an idea.

Luckily, we already have plenty of ideas on how restaurants can benefit from using ChatGPT daily. We did the work to bring you what you love the most: recipes ready to produce outstanding results. Use them and start taking advantage of AI's benefits.

If you want to use AI-powered Language models like ChatGPT, we recommend this post about What is ChatGPT and why does it matter?

1. Create mouth-watering menu descriptions

Copy and paste this ChatGPT prompt.

Act as a professional creative copywriter, a seasoned food expert, and write a [DESIRED ANSWER LENGHT] watering menu description for a recipe of: [INGREDIENTS]

Be creative, descriptive, and appealing.

The result you’ll get will look like this:

Note that different inputs will result in different answers:

2. Re-design recipes to reach new customers

Copy and paste this ChatGPT prompt

Act as an experienced chef, a food restaurant advisor and suggest how to turn our 

[NAME OF THE RECIPE] which has: 

[DETAILED LIST OF INGREDIENTS]

Into a [DESIRED ALTERNATIVE -VEGETARIAN, GLUTEN FREE, ETC.] option. Provide [NUMBER OF DESIRED ANSWERS] alternatives. Each alternative must include a list of ingredients and a brief paragraph with cooking instructions. 

For this example, we asked ChatGPT how to turn a classic Homemade beef burger into a vegetarian alternative.

We got three different answers with specific cooking instructions. The first one was a Portobello Mushroom Burger.

The second answer was for a Chickpea and Carrot Burger:

And it came with easy-to-follow cooking instructions:

The third answer was for a Quinoa and Black Bean Burger.

3. Create seasonal promos and marketing ideas

Act as a senior marketing lead with experience in the food service industry. Give me [NUMBER OF DESIRED ANSWERS] promo ideas to run on [WHERE OR HOW YOU WANT TO RUN YOUR PROMO]. The ideas should be easy to implement and drive business results using our menu. The ideas must target the [DETAIL OF YOUR DESIRED TARGET AUDIENCE] audience. 

ChatGPT suggested #FoodieFriday, #MillennialMenuMashup, and #BrunchBash:

4. Create push messages to promote a particularist, event, or offer

Act as a creative copywriter with experience in performance marketing. You know everything about promoting a restaurant or dark kitchen through delivery apps. Suggest [NUMBER OF DESIRED ANSWERS] brief push notification to promote our [PROMO, MENU, EVENT, OTHER ]. [WHERE YOU'LL RUN THE PROMO —VENUE, APP, OTHER]

Et voilá we got some push notification messages to promote our sushi promo

These are just a few of the multiple uses you can have on ChatGPT, an easy way to get started with AI.

In conclusion, AI technology has the power to revolutionize the way restaurants operate. By embracing it, restaurant owners can improve their business efficiency, reduce costs, and enhance the customer experience. From automating mundane tasks to providing personalized recommendations, AI has the potential to boost your business in ways you never thought possible. We hope this post has given you valuable insights into how AI can help your restaurant succeed and provided you with easy-to-implement tips to get started. So don't wait. Start unlocking the potential of AI for your restaurant today and watch your business soar to new heights!