In a world where artificial intelligence threatens to upend every facet of work and life, some things still remain sacred. And ordering Chili's famous "Triple Dipper" is one of them.
Chris Caldwell, chief information officer of Chili's-owner Brinker International, said his senior leadership team agrees the restaurant chain is "not all in," on AI. Instead, he's spent his budget over the last two years revamping foundational in-restaurant tech, including newer Wi-Fi access points, payment systems, and devices for staff to fix what he said had become a broken experience for customers and workers.
At the same time, he said he pulled back on sexy but ultimately useless initiatives, like robot servers, and has been selective about which generative AI applications are worth pursuing.
All technology initiatives are now tied to improving food service and atmosphere, Caldwell said. "If a robot's getting in the way and not helping us deliver a great guest experience, we're going to get rid of them," he said.
The technology overhaul has been one part of a turnaround for the fast casual chain over the last several years, said Sara Senatore, senior restaurants analyst with Bank of America. The company's stock is up more than 500% since June 2022, when longtime Yum Brands executive Kevin Hochman took over as CEO and made a series of key investments in food quality, service and marketing.
"The Chili's turnaround has been nothing short of remarkable," Senatore said.
In addition to increasing the portion size of its iconic baby back ribs and leaning in to viral menu items like the now TikTok-famous Triple Dipper, Hochman brought in Caldwell, a nearly 30-year veteran of the restaurant tech industry.
Caldwell spent more than 20 of those years at Yum Brands, most recently as CIO of Kentucky Fried Chicken US, before moving to Brinker.
Back to basics
Caldwell said his initial assessment of the chain was that it had massively underinvested in the basics. While robot servers nabbed some fun headlines, slow and spotty Wi-Fi, aging devices and confusing order-placing software were making it difficult for staff to serve customers, he said.
Caldwell's first order of business was a complete Wi-Fi network overhaul. It was a two-year-long project replacing Wi-Fi access points in 1,200 restaurants across the country, renegotiating a new contract with Comcast, adding cellular backup and, in some cases, running new fiber lines into restaurants with poor connectivity.
Caldwell declined to comment on the cost of the project, but said it upgraded the restaurants in a phased approach, finishing earlier this year.
Better Wi-Fi created the foundation to make other in-restaurant tech improvements, he said.
For example, Caldwell purchased 1,200 new laptops: one for each store manager to do email, inventory and other daily tasks. Up until then, managers had been reliant on the restaurant's desktop systems, already overloaded with running all the back office restaurant operations.
To get buy-in, he showed the leadership team a video of staffers working with the old technology, stuck staring at a spinning wheel. "I'm like 'this is what our managers have to deal with on a day-to-day basis'," he said.
Caldwell also purchased 23,000 iPads to replace the aging tablets servers used to take orders, which often had such poor battery life they couldn't last a full shift, he said.
The ordering app used by servers was also due for a revamp, Caldwell said. It was confusing and frustrating, full of obscure abbreviations and requiring way too many clicks to put in a simple order. A more user-friendly version is currently in the works.
In addition, Caldwell said he added 9,000 new touch screens in the kitchens, designed to simplify order prioritization for cooks and added new tabletop payment devices.
The investments so far have led to 20 consecutive quarters of same-store sales growth and to higher guest satisfaction in surveys, Caldwell said.
Restaurants across the board face similar tech challenges, according to Forrester retail analyst Sucharita Kodali. CIOs "need to focus on the things that actually drive their business, like making sure they have good operations," she said.
Kodali said she hasn't yet seen a game-changing GenAI use case in the restaurant space. Some are rolling out customer-facing GenAI chatbots, but it's more for the purpose of ticking a box than driving real value.
A 'test and learn' approach to AI
Caldwell says he's selective about what AI use cases are likely to drive real value.
Recently, he said, the Brinker leadership team brainstormed a few dozen possible use cases, and out of that, he found six or seven worth looking into. "Truthfully it's not a 'go all in,' it's more of a test and learn, " he said.
One area he's pursuing is using AI to automate inventory forecasting and replenishment, helping managers figure out what they need to order and potentially even placing the orders for them.
Caldwell said he's far from sold on using AI to take orders over the phone.
"Our lens is: does it give our customers an amazing experience?" Instead, he said, it would have led to more customer frustration.
Caldwell said he recently introduced a governance team that reviews new requests and suggestions for AI use cases monthly, and continually reevaluates use cases that might have been rejected in the past.
"But again, I truthfully will probably cut more than we proceed forward with," he said. "I don't expect it to be the Wild West of AI."
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