News Briefs

Chipotle Mexican Grill is testing its avocado processing cobiotic prototye and its cobiotic makeline in two separate locations.  

Autocado, its avocado processing collaborative robots, or cobotic. prototype, was developed in partnership with Vebu; it cuts, cores, and peels avocados before they are hand mashed to create the restaurant's signature guacamole. Autocado is currently operating at Chipotle's Huntington Beach, Calif., location at 20972 Magnolia St. At the Huntington Beach location, crew members can focus on assisting with other food prep items and delivering exceptional hospitality to guests while Autocado cuts avocados, removes their skin, and separates their fruit through an automated process.

The Augmented Makeline,  built in collaboration with Hyphen, uses automated technology to build bowls and salads while Chipotle employees operate the top makeline to make burritos, tacos, quesadillas, and kid’s meals. The Augmented Makeline is being tested at the company’s Corona del Mar, Calif., location. 

"These cobotic devices could help us build a stronger operational engine that delivers a great experience for our team members and our guests while maintaining Chipotle's high culinary standards," said Curt Garner, Chief Customer and Technology Officer. "Optimizing our use of these systems and incorporating crew and customer feedback are the next steps in the stage-gate process before determining their broader pilot plans."

Investing in the Future 

Chipotle has invested in Vebu and Hyphen through its  $100 million Cultivate Next venture fund. Introduced in 2022, Cultivate Next makes early-stage investments into strategically aligned companies that further Chipotle's mission to Cultivate a Better World and help accelerate the company's aggressive longer term growth plans to operate 7,000 restaurants in North America.

Autocado Continues Through the Stage-Gate Process  

Vebu and Chipotle worked closely with Certified Training Managers from Chipotle's restaurants to analyze the company's preparation process and identify tasks that are time consuming and less favorable among crew members. In the Huntington Beach restaurant where Autocado is operating, crew members can focus on assisting with other food prep items and delivering exceptional hospitality to guests while Autocado cuts avocados, removes their skin, and separates their fruit through an automated process. On average, it takes Autocado approximately 26 seconds to fully flesh out the fruit inside an avocado. In Chipotle locations across the U.S., Canada, and Europe this year, the company is expected to use approximately 5.18 million cases of avocados, equivalent to 129.5 million pounds of fruit.

The current iteration of Autocado features an updated design and size agnostic avocado processing abilities, meaning that the machine recognizes variability in the fruit and automatically adjusts itself to accommodate the size of the avocados being loaded.

Enhancing Digital Ordering with the Augmented Makeline

Chipotle's Augmented Makeline, created in collaboration with Hyphen, uses automated technology to build bowls and salads while Chipotle employees operate the top makeline to make burritos, tacos, quesadillas, and kid's meals. Approximately 65% of all Chipotle digital orders are bowls or salads, so the Augmented Makeline can improve employee efficiency and digital order accuracy, ensuring a more consistent experience for digital guests.  

Mark Shambura has joined Panera Bread as Chief Marketing Officer. Shambura will lead all aspects of marketing at Panera, including Brand Building, Digital & Loyalty, Product Strategy & Consumer Insights. An accomplished marketing leader with broad expertise in the restaurant industry, Mr. Shambura has previously held marketing leadership roles during pivotal growth periods for top brands including Chipotle, MOD Pizza, and most recently Papa Johns.

"Mark brings an impressive background building brands and leading marketing teams for fast-casual restaurants, and we’re thrilled to welcome him to Panera Bread,” said José Alberto Dueñas, Chief Executive Officer. “As Panera continues to evolve our brand, guided by listening to our guests, Mark’s depth of experience and ability will help drive our growth as a brand that serves great food you feel good about eating.”

Shambura previously served as CMO at Papa Johns, where he led a revitalization of the brand by enhancing its iconic “Better Ingredients, Better Pizza” platform, and developing a more modern, innovative omnichannel approach to transform how Papa Johns appealed to both new and loyal consumers. As Executive Director at Chipotle, Mr. Shambura guided the marketing function through periods of both sustained growth and transition, providing leadership over brand strategy, advertising, digital, social, events/sponsorships, promotions, and field marketing, including playing a key role in spearheading its “Real Ingredients” brand strategy.

“I’m proud to join the Panera Bread team and excited to build on the momentum of the brand's transformation as it continues to evolve in service of our guests,” Mr. Shambura said. “Panera propelled and cemented its position at the top of the fast casual restaurant segment through its promise of high-quality ingredients and freshly prepared food, and I’m thrilled to join a highly talented team to help shape its next chapter.”

Prior to his tenure in the restaurant industry, Mr. Shambura gained extensive marketing agency experience, working with a broad array of top global consumer brands for over a decade. Shambura will report directly to José Alberto Dueñas, Chief Executive Officer, and officially assumed the role of Chief Marketing Officer on July 29, 2024.

Checkmate   launched its new Loyalty & Marketing platform, adding a powerful suite of customer engagement tools to its already robust Direct Ordering (DO) platform. This unified solution integrates loyalty, ordering and marketing into one seamless system, allowing enterprise restaurant brands to deliver personalized customer experiences, boost repeat business, and drive revenue through data-driven marketing strategies.

IDeaS Revenue Solutions, the world’s leading provider of advanced revenue management software (RMS) and services, announced that it is expanding its industry-leading suite of revenue management solutions to the cruise industry through a partnership with Virgin Voyages. Under the partnership, IDeaS is working with Virgin Voyages to develop a first-of-its-kind, innovative RMS solution for the cruise industry.

To fully realize their revenue potential, cruise lines need the ability to efficiently and effectively forecast passenger demand. Historically, this forecasting posed challenges for the industry for a variety of reasons. But with a clearer understanding of this demand, the door opens to transformative, sophisticated pricing and revenue management strategies. While cruise organizations have explored numerous approaches to revenue forecasting, a clear, science-based leader in advanced revenue management has yet to emerge – until now.

As a pioneer in the industry, Virgin Voyages and its innovative revenue management team saw the importance of science-driven automation. They approached IDeaS and outlined a proof of concept, and the two companies are now spearheading the adoption of revenue management in this complex and dynamic industry.                                                                               

Key benefits of this partnership include:

• Power of forecast modeling: IDeaS delivers forecast modeling to determine more efficiently the right booking curve so cruise lines or commercial teams can more dynamically adapt to trends. 
• Forecasting and pricing automation: IDeaS revenue science streamlines cabin pricing, automates processes, and allows individual cruise lines to focus on demand-based forecasting and pricing for each cabin type (i.e. inside, balcony, suites, etc.). By optimizing business mix and inventory allocation, the solution helps to maximize revenue potential and future scalability.  
• Buy versus build: The modern enterprise is plagued by the decision of whether to build custom software or buy a commercial off-the-shelf solution. In fact, it has been common for cruise lines to build their own systems internally. IDeaS now provides a solution that delivers the speed and scalability that a homegrown system can’t. By working with IDeaS, which has existing revenue optimization models (custom to each client), cruise lines that need specific functionality can now realize higher ROI and faster time to market.

Jessica Fleisher, vice president revenue, Virgin Voyages, said: “We came to IDeaS because we saw the power of science-driven automation and the results delivered to the hotel industry. Today, nothing in our market can compare to the power of IDeaS revenue management expertise. We couldn’t be more pleased with the project's development thus far and are impressed with the entire organization's commitment. As a visionary in the cruise industry, we see the value of sophisticated revenue management, so it was only fitting we should partner with the pioneer of RMS technology.”

Sanjay Nagalia, co-founder and chief scientist,IDeaS, said: “IDeaS is excited to work with Virgin Voyages as we make this proof of concept a reality. This collaboration not only marks our entry into the cruise industry but also demonstrates our commitment to expanding our expertise into new verticals. By helping them gain key insights into dynamic forecasting and pricing, we believe we will help usher in a new era for the entire cruise industry. We couldn’t be prouder to work with this exciting and forward-thinking team.” 

See how IDeaS revolutionizes revenue management strategy for cruise lines. Visit https://ideas.com/cruise-lines/ to learn more. 

Guesty, a property management software platform for the short-term rental and hospitality industry, announced the launch of two additional AI features: Guesty’s AI Assistant website builder and ReviewSmart AI. These tools are designed to empower property managers to easily create attractive, engaging websites and quickly gain valuable insights from negative guest feedback.

“These practical AI capabilities reinforce Guesty’s position at the forefront of innovating the hospitality industry,” said Guesty CEO, Amiad Soto. “Our commitment is to consistently enhance our platform, making it easier for property managers to optimize bookings, streamline operations, and elevate the guest experience. The response from our users so far has been incredibly enthusiastic. More and more, property managers are recognizing the benefits of brand building, and we look forward to continuing to deliver the valuable tools that empower them to grow their brand simply and effectively. AI-driven efficiency is essential for property managers, ensuring they have the time to focus on what they do best: providing a best-in-class guest experience.”

AI Assistant Website Builder: Effortless Web Presence, Elevated

Guesty’s built-in AI Assistant website builder empowers property managers to effortlessly create visually stunning web pages and compelling copy in minutes. The AI Assistant also provides SEO for optimized web pages, ensuring that properties stand out in a crowded market and are discovered more easily. 

Guesty is the only PMS to embed this level of website customization and to integrate AI-generated content directly and seamlessly into its platform, providing an invaluable resource for property managers looking to build and maintain a strong brand presence and drive more direct bookings to their properties. Since its beta launch, the AI Assistant has already been adopted by 25% of Guesty’s website builder users, showcasing its immediate impact and appeal.

ReviewSmart AI: Turn Feedback into Actionable Insights

ReviewSmart AI is an intelligent analytics tool that seamlessly and comprehensively categorizes negative guest reviews into actionable insights. By organizing feedback into key areas such as noise, cleanliness, check-in, communication, and guest expectations, property managers can quickly identify and address issues, ensuring a consistently high-quality guest experience. Additionally, property managers are able to use these insights to track and trend an improved quality of service they’. 

This advanced tool saves time by automating the review analysis process and also empowers property managers to make data-driven decisions that enhance operations and boost guest satisfaction. With ReviewSmart AI, managers can focus on implementing solutions that make a real difference, rather than spending valuable time identifying problems. ReviewSmart AI is already one of Guesty's more popular dashboards among its advanced users. 

Guesty’s intelligent Property Management System (PMS) is supported by a 250+ strong R&D team and a robust offering of native solutions for hospitality. These tools are becoming indispensable in the day-to-day operations of property managers. Other successful Guesty AI-based tools include ReplyAI, transforming guest-host communication, and PriceOptimizer, a dynamic pricing tool for revenue management.

Fourth announces the release of Fourth iQ, the Artificial Intelligence for Restaurants. Fourth iQ is used by restaurant chains to optimize their entire workforce and inventory operations to maximize profitability, increase productivity and enhance the experience of employees and customers.

Many of Fourth's customers are already benefiting from Fourth iQ, including Pizza Hut, Noodles & Company, and Chili’s. As part of the expanded capabilities offered by Fourth iQ, customers can utilize AI forecasting for scheduling and inventory, plus a Real-Time KPI dashboard to track their key metrics across all locations. A further range of advanced Fourth iQ features will deliver new ways to increase profitability centrally across all locations and boost the productivity of general managers at each location.

"With 25 years in the restaurant game, we are acutely aware of the challenges our customers face—profit margins are tight, as labor and food costs continue to rise; and the responsibility for driving efficiency is dependent on the decisions made by overburdened general managers who are often reliant on incomplete information and legacy technologies. Fourth iQ can overcome these challenges by using AI to generate ‘the next best actions’ informed by multiple data sources and defined goals; providing managers with real-time recommendations of how best to efficiently deploy labor, grow sales, and reduce waste,” said Fourth CEO Clinton Anderson.

Tangible Benefits

In essence, Fourth iQ is a multi-faceted AI and Analytics capability that works across the entirety of restaurant chains’ operations, including recruitment, HR, scheduling, payroll and inventory management. Fourth iQ is embedded into Fourth’s established suite of solutions, including HotSchedules, PeopleMatter, and MacromatiX.

"By creating a layer of intelligence across all locations in a restaurant chain, Fourth iQ produces what we call ‘above store insights that drive in-store action’, to ensure every opportunity to drive profitability and efficiency is identified and actioned, whether by managers or entirely automated,” said CTO Christian Berthelsen.

The tangible benefits of Fourth iQ are already being realized by Fourth’s customers; AI-driven forecasting has enabled Noodles & Company to increase their sales forecasting accuracy by 20%, leading to a $4 million reduction in labor costs. The same increase in forecast accuracy resulted in Chili’s saving 600 labor hours per week nationally.

Bar Louie, a 63 location Gastrobar concept, is another Fourth customer embarking on their AI journey with Fourth iQ. Roberta Frierson, Senior Vice President of Technology, shared their ambition to become AI-driven. “At Bar Louie, we see the promise of AI. Not just for front of house, but for our back of house processes like recruiting, hiring, scheduling, and paying team members. As we incorporate AI into our tech stack, we believe it will make managers more effective and streamline our operations.”

Enabling customers to easily bring AI into their tech stack is core to Fourth’s vision for the industry. “In creating Fourth iQ, we are providing every restaurant chain the simplest and most effective way to get started on their AI journey,” says Christian Berthelsen. He continues, “Our underlying AI platform provides the infrastructure to securely integrate data sources and train AI, then put it to work via our solutions and apps. Our experienced implementation teams do all the heavy lifting, including configuring the AI within Fourth iQ to what makes your business unique. There really is no barrier to getting started today.”

To learn more about Fourth iQ, visit the Fourth website.