When we talk of technological developments and industry adaptations, often we are emphasizing what needs to change about what already exists. We’re updating systems and improving customer service, usually through the lens of looking backwards and then adjusting. But for new up-and-coming professionals, AI and tech integrations are just a fact of the business. Young Gen Z chefs-in-training and restauranteurs-in-the-making are coming into the industry not having to reflect on the past or learn anything new.
“The next generation of restaurateurs is not afraid of artificial intelligence. In fact, they are already using it,” says Nation’s Restaurant News (NRN). But readily welcoming AI doesn’t mean that the next generation is turning everything over to tech–in fact, it’s quite the opposite.
“A group of four current or just-graduated culinary students from Northern Arizona University made their first visit to the National Restaurant Association Show in Chicago [this past May],”says the article from NRN. Speaking with the students, NRN found that many of them were fully willing to embrace AI when it comes to management duties, inventory, and other administrative tasks. For example, Jack Fielder, looking to enter the specialty coffee business, has “taken a picture of the storage area and asked AI to count supplies for him, then upload the results to an Excel spreadsheet. It made a few mistakes, he said, but it was still faster than doing it himself.”
Students are also eager to maximize the analytical power of AI to improve planning and profitability. “The students pointed to other potentially useful jobs for AI, like creating employee schedules and analyzing granular data, such as, ‘How many burgers did this person sell to a table above five people in this 30-minute window?’” Helpful information when engineering menus and analyzing for waste or projecting food costs.
But while they’re excited about all these types of applications, the students also have a pure sense of where AI shouldn’t be in the restaurant business. They said, “there can be value in doing tedious tasks the old-fashioned way,” and they all agreed this was especially the case when it comes to recipe development. NRN says, “These aspiring chefs wouldn’t think of serving AI slop. After all, their love of food and cooking is what got them into this business in the first place.”
For those in the industry hesitant to integrate AI into their restaurants, this is an optimistic note about how the future generation hopes to use it as a tool, not a human replacement, hopefully preserving the important creative and human components of the industry while helping to make more profitable businesses with better customer service.
Richard Weil, owner and principal at National Restaurant Consultants, believes, “The food service and hospitality industry, while historically slow to embrace technology, is keenly aware of the pros and cons described in this NRN article. From drive-thrus to inventory management, and staffing schedules to creation of efficient and effective labor scheduling, AI can with many applications improve the management of operations. Replacing the human touch however is not one of them.”