AI in the Hospitality Industry

Is This Our Future—or the Tool That Helps Save the Industry?

Artificial intelligence is no longer something the hospitality industry can talk about as being ten years away.

It is here.

The bigger question isn’t whether AI will become part of restaurants, hotels, foodservice operations, and distribution. It already has. The question is where AI belongs, how far we should allow it to go, and whether we use it to replace hospitality—or strengthen it.

After spending decades in foodservice operations, I believe there is an important distinction that needs to be made:

AI should not be about eliminating people. It should be about eliminating inefficiency.

That difference matters.

The Restaurant Business Model Is Under Pressure

Restaurants have always been difficult businesses to operate. Margins are small, competition is intense, and operators have little room for error.

Today, however, those pressures have grown substantially.

Food costs have increased. Labor costs have increased. Insurance, utilities, occupancy costs, credit-card fees, and taxes continue to put pressure on operators. At the same time, restaurants continue struggling to recruit and retain qualified employees.

According to the National Restaurant Association, average hourly earnings for restaurant employees have increased approximately 41% since February 2020, while wholesale food prices have increased roughly 35%. Food and labor each consume approximately one-third of the average restaurant’s sales dollar. During the first half of 2026, 33% of restaurant operators surveyed reported that their restaurants were not profitable.

That is not a sustainable trajectory.

The traditional quick-service restaurant model was built around volume, efficiency, standardized production, and a substantial workforce of entry-level and part-time employees. High school students, college students, and people entering the workforce historically made up an important part of that labor pool.

That model is changing.

The National Restaurant Association itself points to the shrinking population of 16- to 24-year-olds as one of the long-term workforce challenges facing restaurants. Nearly three-quarters of operators planned to hire in 2026 while still expecting difficulty finding experienced managers and chefs.

So operators face a difficult equation:

Higher wages + higher food costs + higher operating expenses + labor shortages + consumer resistance to higher menu prices = an increasingly difficult business model.

Technology will have to become part of the solution.

Fast Food Will Probably Lead the AI Revolution

Quick-service restaurants are perhaps the most logical environment for automation because much of their production is repetitive, standardized, and volume-driven.

Frying French fries is repetitive.

Cooking the same product to the same specifications hundreds of times per day is repetitive.

Monitoring holding times is repetitive.

Taking routine drive-through orders is repetitive.

Counting inventory is repetitive.

Recording temperatures is repetitive.

None of those functions represents the heart of hospitality. This is where companies like Miso Robotics offer an interesting glimpse into the future.

Miso’s Flippy system automates commercial fry stations using robotics, computer vision, and AI. Its technology can identify products, monitor cooking, manage multiple baskets, and integrate with restaurant operating systems. The company has also expanded into operational intelligence and forecasting technology.

That doesn’t necessarily mean eliminating the employee.

It means asking a more important operational question:

Does a human being need to stand over a 350-degree fryer for eight hours when technology can perform that repetitive and potentially dangerous task while that employee performs work requiring judgment, communication, and guest interaction?

I would rather move that employee into production, quality control, expediting, guest service, or another position where human ability actually creates value.

That is where automation makes sense.

AI Is Much Bigger Than Robots

When people hear “AI in restaurants,” they frequently picture robots cooking hamburgers.

That is only a small part of what is coming.

The more significant transformation may happen quietly behind the scenes.

AI can increasingly assist operators with:

• Inventory management and perpetual inventory
• Demand forecasting and purchasing
• Scheduling and labor forecasting
• Food-waste tracking
• Recipe and portion-cost monitoring
• Production forecasting
• Sales analysis
• Menu engineering
• Equipment monitoring and predictive maintenance
• Delivery and routing optimization
• Accounts payable and invoice processing
• Energy management
• Training and operational compliance
• Identifying unusual waste, voids, discounts, and potential theft
• Comparing theoretical food cost against actual food cost

Imagine an operation in which the system knows you sold 187 orders of salmon, understands the recipe portion for each plate, knows how much salmon was received, and can immediately alert management that actual usage does not match theoretical usage.

That is not replacing a chef.

It gives the chef better information.

The same principle applies to labor.

An intelligent operating system can analyze historical sales, reservations, weather, events, dayparts, and ordering patterns and help management forecast how many employees are needed.

Again, it isn’t replacing management.

It gives management better tools to manage.

Waste May Be One of AI’s Greatest Opportunities

Food waste is one of the silent profit killers in hospitality.

Overproduction, improper portions, spoilage, incorrect preparation, purchasing errors, and poor inventory management cost restaurants enormous amounts of money.

And much of it goes unnoticed.

Emerging AI waste-management systems can photograph, weigh, identify and categorize discarded food, allowing operators to determine what is being thrown away.

Evidence already shows this can produce meaningful results. A 2025 study of AI-based food-waste tracking in restaurants, hotels and catering operations reported food-waste reductions ranging from 23% to 51% in the participating operations, with the cost of wasted food per meal falling by as much as 39%.

That is where AI becomes extremely powerful.

You cannot manage what you don’t measure.

Distribution Is Already Moving in This Direction

AI’s influence doesn’t begin at the restaurant’s back door.

Foodservice distributors and supply-chain companies are also implementing artificial intelligence, forecasting, and automation. Sysco, for example, has announced a multi-year AI-enabled transformation involving inventory management, forecasting accuracy, routing optimization and back-office automation. For fiscal 2027, the company has discussed $100 million in combined cost savings from AI-enabled process improvements, automation, and other operating-efficiency initiatives.

Think about what that tells us.

The technology affecting restaurants isn’t limited to replacing someone standing at a fryer.

It can affect the entire foodservice ecosystem:

Manufacturer → Distribution Center → Transportation → Restaurant → Kitchen → Guest

Every step can potentially become more predictive and efficient.

Where AI Should Stop

This conversation has another side that the hospitality industry cannot ignore.

Hospitality still requires humans.

I don’t want to walk into a fine-dining restaurant and be greeted by a machine.

I don’t want artificial intelligence replacing a knowledgeable server who understands wine, ingredients, and service.

I don’t want a robot trying to recognize that a couple is celebrating their 40th anniversary.

And I certainly don’t want technology replacing the chef’s creativity, palate, leadership, and understanding of food.

Fine dining, resorts, luxury hotels, catering, weddings, private clubs and upscale restaurants sell something beyond food.

They sell experience.

A computer can process information.

It cannot genuinely care that your guest is celebrating a birthday.

It cannot replace the emotional intelligence of an exceptional maître d’.

It cannot replace a chef walking through the dining room and speaking with a guest.

It cannot replace genuine hospitality.

That is precisely why I believe the future isn’t people versus AI.

It is people supported by AI.

AI Should Manage the Predictable So People Can Manage the Personal

The strongest hospitality organizations of the future will probably combine both.

Use AI for forecasting.

Use AI for inventory.

Use automation for repetitive production.

Use technology to monitor waste.

Use predictive systems to schedule maintenance before equipment fails.

Use data to identify operational problems before they become financial disasters.

But when the guest walks through the door?

Let a human being welcome them.

When someone has a complaint?

Let a trained manager listen.

When a couple celebrates an anniversary?

Let the service team recognize it.

When a chef creates a new dish?

Let experience, craftsmanship, and creativity lead the process.

Technology should handle what technology does best so our people have more time to do what hospitality professionals should do best:

Take care of people.

The Industry Has a Choice

AI is coming to hospitality whether individual operators embrace it today or five years from now.

The question is whether we implement it intelligently.

Used incorrectly, AI could make restaurants feel sterile, impersonal, and transactional.

Used correctly, it could help operators reduce waste, control labor, improve consistency, manage inventory, increase productivity, and protect increasingly thin margins.

Most importantly, it could allow businesses to invest their limited labor dollars in positions where people create the greatest value.

The restaurant industry does not need fewer people who understand hospitality.

We need fewer wasted hours, fewer unnecessary processes, fewer inventory mistakes, less food waste, and better information.

If artificial intelligence can help us accomplish that, then AI isn’t necessarily the enemy of hospitality.

It may become one of the tools that helps preserve it.