While putting out feelers for sources, I may have witnessed in real time how hotel food and beverage professionals are adjusting to the arrival of the “future.” Several contacts I initially reached out to told me, “I don’t think my property’s restaurants are a fit, but I am looking forward to reading the piece with great interest.” This is perhaps why companies behind the technology are eager to educate, enlighten and reassure prospective F&B leadership clients that operations will run more smoothly—and not at the expense of humans. Hotel F&B decision-makers who have embraced AI and automation, meanwhile, explain how it has already helped their operations move forward while cutting waste and costs.
Mike Matta, CEO of Solink (a cloud-based, AI-driven video security and data analytics platform) believes that while hotel F&B management knows performance can be better, they may lack the visibility to pinpoint why. Once the prospective clients understand where the opportunity or problem exists, however, they can determine how AI can help them automate the more repetitive work and tasks. “I’ve found that many operators add technology in hopes of outsourcing the problems they don’t understand, but this unfortunately only creates more noise,” he said. “Siloed tools often become one more dashboard to check instead of (providing) answers that teams can act on in real time. Choosing a platform partner willing to own outcomes alongside can help (F&B teams) define what success looks like, and stay accountable to it.”
A Platform for Change
Matta points out that the right AI platform can readily navigate across large volumes of operational data, identify what requires attention and help teams take action at a scale people simply can't match. Managers can spend less time on repetitive daily audits and more time improving the guest experience, driving revenue and running better operations.
“Considering the thin margins they are working with, chefs and bartenders can be loathe to take risks because there’s no tool telling them the right quantity and (how to) avoid waste that impact food cost percentages,” said David Cantu, CEO of Craftable, a back-office operations software platform designed for bars, restaurants, hotels and multi-unit hospitality group. “However, food is only the most visible part of the problem. The same blind spot shows up across the hotel ecosystem with paper goods, cleaning supplies and utilities. That waste goes completely unmeasured, and GMs cannot fix what they’re not tracking.”
Cantu has found some F&B decision-makers find it is hard to give up control to automation or AI, arguing that machinery may miss what a human may catch. There is also a hesitancy to add another piece of software, as many kitchens are decentralized and have disparate systems that should talk to each other but don’t. His argument in favor of AI and automation is that having a fully digitized operational backbone provides a manager clarity to determine what to do about a problem before it reaches the profit and loss statement. Rather than spend time managing chaos, managers instead can readily find the highest leverage opportunities across food cost, labor and purchasing.
“What tools (hotel) F&B decide to introduce into an (employee’s) workflow should (make) him better at something only he can do—know the menu cold and be fully present at the table instead of apologizing and going to ask the kitchen,” said Terry Psaltakis, a 30-year restaurant operator who this year founded ShiftTrained, an AI-powered menu training program for restaurants that helps identify their restaurants’ friction points, lists them, prioritizes them and then allows management and other users to look for solutions. “(Staff can) upsell without it feeling like a script, catch the allergy before it becomes an incident and they have a better shift. That is not automation replacing hospitality, (but) automation clearing the way so good hospitality can actually shine.”
Andrew Sanders, VP of Travel & Hospitality at DataArt (which creates central reservation systems, loyalty programs, guest engagement tools and revenue optimizing engines), advises hotel F&B management divisions to be sure the platforms or software programs fit with what the wider organization is trying to achieve in the long and short term. While starting with a manageable project makes sense, it should still be something the business can build on rather than something that ends up being scrapped.
“When I speak with managers, they often tell me it’s hard to know where to start, so they end up continuing to run multimillion dollar businesses with spreadsheets,” Sanders said. “Making that first move can feel daunting, which is why it helps to start with a manageable roadmap and break it into milestones. That gives you a way to see whether you’re heading in the right direction and build confidence as you go. If a new system gives greater insight to customer preferences and behavior, that should enable all staff to provide better service and should create better interactions with guests.”
Customization should also be part of the decision making process, according to Cantu, who has encountered many hotel restaurant GMs who think AI is “the silver bullet” for all their problems yet don’t understand how to maximize the impact or what the limitations of different systems are. Instead of investing in a custom-built platform that meets specific business needs, they adopt a generic LLM without vetting the platform. They often get disappointing results because the model wasn't personalized to their business or their actual problems.
When Cantu meets with prospective clients, the first thing he does is help them understand what AI can and cannot do, and discuss the problems they’re solving for in the simplest terms. “I advise them how to adopt AI that generates compounding returns rather than add more complicated systems to manage. Many F&B managers contend with purchasing, invoicing, inventory, recipe costing and labor planning. All of them determine profitability, and they're still mostly analog in most operations and (sometimes) split across tools that were never built to talk to each other. Tying them together into an intuitive AI platform (allows them to see) changes in food costs or shifts in demand, that shows up automatically in recipe pricing and in the labor plan respectively, without a manager sitting there connecting the dots by hand.”
Hotels Check in to AI Solutions
One success story Cantu cites is Dallas, TX-based Hôtel Swexan, a Michelin Key-recognized destination with five restaurants, a full banquet floor and kitchen, and thousands of SKUs (Stock Keeping Units) moving across the property. “Their operations team was drowning in paperwork and manual processes, the finance team struggled with invoice management, while the culinary team relied on outdated tracking methods,” he said. “End-of-month reporting lasted nearly a week, impacting cost control and financial insight sharing. However, after introducing our platform, monthly inventory closure time decreased from six days to just one day, an 80 percent reduction that gives management faster access to critical financial data.”
Alex Dorn, senior director of food & beverage at Wisconsin-based Kohler, known for hotels with aspirational spa and wellness amenities showcasing its high-end plumbing technology, agrees that AI enables its culinary teams to put most of their attention into making its F&B equally distinctive. Rather than automate hospitality, he insists it gives the teams better insights so they can deliver a more elevated and dynamic level of hospitality. As guest preferences are constantly evolving, AI helps Kohler’s F&B team identify trends faster than ever before rather than replace instincts or creativity. Easy access to better information, in turn, allows the properties to stay ahead of what guests are looking for and continue creating experiences they'll love.
“In our world, hospitality is incredibly personal,” he said. “AI helps eliminate some of the administrative work and data crunching so our managers, chefs, bartenders and service teams can spend more time focused on guests and less time buried in spreadsheets. Creativity is one of our biggest draws, and AI isn't manufacturing menus for our chefs and beverage teams. It helps spark ideas, identify emerging trends and organize information more efficiently so our teams can spend more time doing what they love, which is creating memorable food and beverage experiences.”
While many hotel companies rely on a patchwork of third-party technology platforms, Concord Hospitality chose a different path. Under the leadership of Corporate Director of Food & Beverage Zachary Wendel and Corporate Director of Food & Beverage Steve Van Stone, the company developed several AI-powered solutions in-house, including Yes Chef, along with custom Copilot and Claude AI integrations. By controlling the development process internally, Concord has been able to create a connected technology ecosystem that evolves alongside the business and can be updated quickly as operational needs change.
“We didn’t invest in technology simply to have technology,” Wendel said. “Instead of jumping between multiple platforms, we wanted a single source of truth that gives us a real-time pulse on how an operation is performing, whether it’s a rooftop bar or a full-service restaurant. Concord had numerous administrative processes that needed to be streamlined, and our technology platforms have made it much easier to manage change in a fast-moving environment. The old process was time-consuming and left room for human error. While we still verify pricing through spot checks, these automations have done an excellent job of improving accuracy and reducing manual work over the past year.”
General Manager Nyle Kelly of The Brookstreet Hotel in Ottawa, Canada, said the initial push to adopt Solink technology was driven by the need for objective operational truth and enhanced security. While it provided a reliable system to audit guest journey friction points, protect property and verify guest incidents quickly and accurately, it evolved into connecting the property’s physical spaces with point-of-sale data to strengthen F&B controls. Solink also provided the ability to sync security camera feeds directly with transactional data across its F&B outlets, including Options Jazz Lounge and Ironstone Grill.
“While we (initially) framed Solink to our team as a tool for clarity, safety and fairness, it has also protected staff against unwarranted guest complaints or false claims by providing an accurate, objective record of service interactions,” said Kelly, who noted that Solink remains the property’s platform. While there are no plans to switch, there are discussions about expanding the video retention window beyond one month as data needs increase.
“Under the direction of our culinary director, linking Solink directly to POS terminals at our bars and dining outlets lets F&B leadership see real-time service dynamics and put metrics to customer behaviors,” Kelly said. “By seeing when ring-ins occur relative to actual table delivery or bar prep, culinary and beverage leaders spend less time manually troubleshooting service delays and more time refining menu execution, spirit pairings and guest presentation. Combining these visual insights with historical sales trends allows our kitchen leadership to refine prep volumes, directly reducing prep waste during slower service windows.”
The managements of San Antonio Marriott Rivercenter on the River Walk and San Antonio Marriott Riverwalk began exploring their options among hospitality AI tools in 2024. According to Matt St. Amand, director of food & beverage at the hotels, there needs to be a technology in place that would enable the food and beverage teams to spend less time manually compiling and analyzing information and more time focused on guests and associates.
“The volume of operational data we work with continues to grow, so the opportunity was about making that information more useful and helping leaders make decisions faster,” St. Amand said. “Our primary AI platform today is Microsoft Copilot because it integrates with tools our teams already use every day, including Excel, Outlook, Word, PowerPoint and Teams. That made adoption easier and allowed us to work within an existing technology ecosystem rather than introducing an entirely separate platform. When forecasting price and cost of inventory, we use AI-assisted models to build volume assumptions and then translate those forecasts into recipe quantities, production needs and order guides.”
St. Amand affirmed the San Antonio Marriotts’ management’s message to employees has been straightforward upon adoption (“AI is a tool for our associates, not a replacement for them.”). However, AI also positively impacted productivity by reducing administrative burden. Managers and chefs were spending less time gathering information and more time monitoring overall hotel restaurant quality, coaching associates, improving the guest experience and developing new food and beverage programs. The time saved handling administrative work surrounding culinary operations, in turn, means more meaningful one-on-one contact with staff and guests.
“As the technology develops, there is significant potential to connect those insights with digital guest communication and create more personalized food and beverage recommendations,” he said. “Our use is more focused on understanding preferences than delivering individualized recommendations directly to guests. We can analyze guest feedback, sales trends and purchasing patterns to understand what guests are responding to and where preferences may be changing.”
A Reassuring Translation to Automation
What is communicated from management to staff should center on the premise that AI is a complementary tool that can help cut the burnout and chaos that drives turnover, according to Cantu. If a system gives general managers their time back and forecasts they can trust, decision-makers can fix what's been driving people out of this industry.
“GMs are the heartbeat of your operations, and should have access to the best tools available as they are critical to keeping the heart of operations going,” he said. “Tenure is the money ball metric of year-over-year performance, and it drives employee retention and guest loyalty regardless of brand type or service model. When your best operators are burning out navigating disconnected systems, you’re not just losing efficiency but also pushing your people to leave.”
Some resistance to AI and automation may stem from the fact that “every conversation about AI in hospitality often starts in the wrong place—generating fears about what or who technology might replace,” according to Psaltakis. The correct framing of this conversation should not lose sight of the fact that the person/server at the table is ultimately the product. A well-trained employee, therefore, is a happy employee. Training from week one forward is not an added expense, but a retention lever aimed at the exact window where the money leaks.
“Industry research consistently finds that about 70 percent of frontline restaurant turnover happens in the first 90 days,” he said, noting that the old new hires model was a week of their shadowing a strong server, assuming a manager has a strong server to spare. However, this is not the case in 2026. “The familiar ‘shadow shift,’ when a new server follows a strong server for three, five or more shifts, means two people on the payroll are doing one person's work while the best server is off their own section. You pay twice and earn less, every hire, forever. The second is the comped plate. A dish sent out that a guest cannot eat or described wrong and returned. That is food cost, labor to re-fire, a table turned slower and a guest who now has an opinion about the property. AI can solve these problems by making new and existing employees stronger, smarter, confident and happy.”
John Fowler, CEO of Las Vegas-based MBody AI Corp. (a hardware-agnostic enterprise robotics platform) said a good automation platform should be strictly focused on physical enterprise operations, space management and autonomous fleet orchestration. However, his firm continues to innovate through technology that shows how sales and weather patterns could be ingested to give better instructions to the robotic fleet and maximizing guest experience around high and low traffic times or changing weather patterns.
“Early-generation, single-purpose robots gave automation a bad reputation because they were rigid, siloed units that required constant staff supervision,” Fowler said. “Fleet orchestrators change that (by) combining onboard perception with dynamic route planning and live mission control, so the machines can adapt to changed layouts and moving traffic rather than stopping. The objective is to take the supervisory burden off restaurant and IT managers … as dining areas constantly change.”
By providing a full-service solution over a multi-year subscription, Fowler said the technology can help its clients understand the people behind the technology will be with them for the journey. This helps makes buyers less apprehensive. “You reassure them by demonstrating how automation directly solves their worst, daily operational headaches,” he said. “Heavy floor scrubbing, late-night vacuuming and continuous care of public spaces wear down human energy that should be directed toward culinary execution, beverage presentation and guest hospitality.”
When leadership positions automated fleets as dedicated operational tools designed to handle heavy physical labor, the existing staff sees immediate relief. It allows team members to shift away from manual floor maintenance and focus on higher-value service roles, guest engagement and career advancement within the property. For most employers we work with, they have vacancies and high turnover, so a reduction in headcount in the CFO’s spreadsheet does not necessarily mean an immediate layoff. Our experience is that companies are loath to give up their good team members, said Fowler.
On the “Hor-AI-zon”
Cantu predicts the next evolution will be agentic, where systems don’t just surface an insight but can initiate the workflow by adjusting an order, surface loyalty customer offers, flag a staffing issue or recommending a menu change for a manager to approve. He adds forecasting is also getting sharper, not just looking at last year's sales but also pulling in weather, local events, holidays and connecting directly into ordering, prep and staffing instead of sitting in its own report. Some operator-adopters are using predictive analytics to help cut food waste by up to 35 percent, while making sure their best sellers never run out.
The San Antonio Marriotts’ St. Amand finds that most immediate return for his properties have been time savings and better decision-making thanks to the fact that managers can now analyze information faster, identify opportunities sooner and spend less time building reports manually. On the cost side, more precise forecasting and purchasing can help control inventory, avoid unnecessary purchases and make more informed ingredient decisions.
“AI itself does not create profitability, but gives our leaders better information and more time to act on it,” he said, adding the technology has created more time for chefs and beverage leaders to experiment with dishes, seasonal concepts and special activations. “It also gives us greater visibility when evaluating purchasing needs and market pricing, which can lead to more informed conversations with suppliers. We expect to continue expanding AI in areas such as business intelligence, forecasting, operational reporting and guest-sentiment analysis.We have used that flexibility in developing programs such as ramen pop-ups and specialty dinners. We can also look at sales performance alongside guest-satisfaction feedback to see changing preferences earlier. It gives our culinary team another source of evidence when deciding what to refine or remove, and where there may be room for something new. The technology informs the decision, but the chef still makes it.”
Wendel assesses that AI has helped managers track thousands of guest interactions, reservations, menu sales and inventory transactions, bringing all that information together so they can make better decisions faster. “Hospitality will always require a human touch,” he said. “We view AI as an assistant, not a replacement. Operators who embrace and effectively implement these tools have a significant advantage, and I believe that advantage will only become more apparent over time.”
This article was originally published in the October edition of Hotel Management magazine. Subscribe here.