From Robots to Analytics: 2025’s Tech Trends That Will Reshape Restaurants
It’s hard to remember a time when dining at a restaurant didn’t involve a cash register or credit card machine. Even QR codes, digital menus, and in-store ordering kiosks are no longer novel additions to today’s dining experience. Now, entire kitchens are being run by high-tech robots.
Chipotle is piloting an automated avocado peeler — aptly named the Autocado — and an automated workline that can prepare burrito bowls all by itself. Salad shop Sweetgreen opened its first fully automated kitchen. At my restaurant, Wasabi, we use robots to make rice sheets for sushi rolls.
These are just a few of the exciting technological innovations that have emerged in the restaurant industry over the past year, offering a glimpse of the trends ahead. In 2025, technology will be an important part of a broader, connected system that digitizes, automates, and optimizes everything from back-office budgeting to at-the-table dining experiences.
But are restaurants prepared to capitalize on these innovations?
3 major technology trends affecting the food service industry
The good news is that restaurant operators aren’t strangers to digital transformation. Many readily adopted technology tools to keep their businesses afloat during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Initial investments often focused on solving specific challenges that surfaced during the global health crisis, such as implementing online ordering systems to handle a spike in takeout or using QR code menus to enable contactless dining. These digital investments underscored the need for restaurants to adopt technology that integrates and augments their physical environments.
In the years since the pandemic, smart restaurateurs have continued to embrace digital solutions to meet new consumer expectations. However, a growing percentage of today’s digital tools and technology advancements are driving more holistic transformations across operations, not one-off needs.
Let’s take a look at three key technology trends reshaping the food service industry in the year ahead.
- The rise of robotics in kitchens
- The use of advanced data analytics in decision-making
- A shift from front-of-house to back-office technology priorities
As the innovations from Chipotle, Sweetgreen, and my own operating experience underscore, robotics are increasingly ingrained in restaurant operations. This trend will only accelerate as more advanced hardware solutions enable restaurants to streamline repetitive tasks, ensure consistency, and enhance efficiency.
Not all restaurants will roll out a fully automated kitchen right away (if ever). Rather than replacing human jobs, robots will support them, as more restaurants adopt automation or robotic technology to handle simple tasks and ease labor-intensive duties. These smaller-scale investments will lead to more widespread deployments over time.
The AI revolution has significant ramifications for the restaurant industry. In particular, AI, machine learning, and advanced data analytics now empower restaurant operators to make more informed decisions about operational efficiency, growth strategies, and profitability.
Integrated data analytics enable restaurants to leverage the wealth of data gathered from sales, foot traffic, ingredient usage, and numerous other sources. Increasingly, restaurants can turn to technology to share, integrate, and analyze these data sources across platforms.
Over the past several years, restaurants have focused on front-of-house technologies like mobile ordering, pay-at-table systems, and support for third-party delivery. These innovations have reshaped customer expectations for dining.
New technology developments will continue to improve the front-of-house but at a much slower pace than in previous years. Many restaurants are shifting their focus to back-of-house solutions aimed at improving everything from inventory management and ingredient usage to invoice processing and budget tracking.
In the wake of ongoing labor shortages, rising costs, and other economic pressures, these back-office innovations will prove crucial to improve operational efficiency and ensure profitability in the year ahead.
Staying ahead of rapid technology changes
As restaurants respond to emerging technology trends, long-term success hinges on making smart technology investments that reinforce your commitment to exceptional guest experience.
The following strategies can help you effectively navigate the year ahead — and all of the technology transformations that will come with it.
- Build cohesive and integrated systems.
- Prioritize flexible solutions over catch-all fixes
- Connect technology initiatives back to your guest experience.
Restaurants can no longer rely on patchwork technologies and disconnected solutions to run the business. As AI, machine learning, and advanced data analytics become increasingly embedded throughout operations and critical for growth, you require cohesive and integrated systems capable of unifying technology under a single framework.
Start by choosing systems that easily connect through APIs and tools that facilitate data sharing across platforms. From there, continue to build interconnected solutions that not only streamline operations but offer a unified view of your business and empower you to make informed, data-driven decisions.
Many tech providers offer comprehensive, all-in-one solutions that promise to revolutionize your entire operations. It’s important to evaluate these tools carefully and assess if they can actually meet your restaurant’s specific needs and help you adapt and scale over time.
Flexible digital tools with a more specific impact enable you to refine processes, resolve challenges, and respond to changing conditions without the need for frequent, costly overhauls. In particular, look for solutions that are compatible with other platforms, allowing you to build upon your tech stack and scale your digital initiatives alongside your business.
Unlike pure services businesses where digital transformation can happen quickly and all at once, restaurants will remain a more physical business where process improvements are difficult to introduce. As such, flexibility is critical to ensure a tech stack that you can modify over time.
Avoid technology initiatives that stem from chasing the latest digital fad or pursuing innovation for the sake of innovation alone. These types of fleeting investments rarely generate lasting value. Rather, your end goal for any digital solution should be to enhance the customer experience.
Even back-of-house innovations that improve internal processes should ultimately lead to a customer-first philosophy. For instance, investing in a new SaaS platform doesn’t just streamline operations, it also frees up resources to provide exceptional customer service and personalized experiences to guests.
Aligning all technology initiatives around a shared CX goal ensures technology investments will add true value that supports your brand promise and your bottom line.
Connecting technology evolutions to business goals
Within a few years, customers may not blink an eye at being served a meal entirely by robots — or at least automated kitchens overseen by human staff. And in the back office, connected digital platforms and data-driven strategies will become a business imperative for restaurants interested in navigating an increasingly competitive landscape.
Despite these significant technological shifts, restaurants will remain fundamentally connected to the tangible, physical experiences they offer customers. Operators will need to create cohesive technology systems that seamlessly connect the digital and physical worlds.
By rooting your AI, data analytics, and automation initiatives in a cohesive, customer-centric framework, you can maximize your technology investments and focus on what matters most: delivering exceptional dining experiences that turn one-time patrons into repeat customers.
About the Author
Prior to founding MarginEdge, Bo was the founder of Wasabi. Wasabi has operated a dozen conveyor belt sushi restaurants in seven states over the past 20 years, and is still operating in Northern Virginia. Prior to Wasabi, Bo was in the US Peace Corps serving in Macedonia, earned an MS in Finance from London Business School, and founded an educational software company, Prometheus, which he sold to Blackboard in 2002. Bo also achieved an MS in Data Science from Northwestern University in 2021.