WEBVTT - Checkmate’s CEO on Voice AI, Kiosks, Catering 0:00:11.920 --> 0:00:14.600 Welcome to Chopping it Up. I'm your host, Mike hallon 0:00:14.640 --> 0:00:18.480 the senior restaurant food Service Analysts at Bloomberg Intelligence, our 0:00:18.520 --> 0:00:20.919 research and that a BIS five hundred analysts around the 0:00:20.960 --> 0:00:24.440 globe can be found exclusively on the Bloomberg terminal. If 0:00:24.480 --> 0:00:26.360 you enjoy the pod, I'd love it if you could 0:00:26.400 --> 0:00:29.760 leave us a review on Apple or Spotify. Today I'm 0:00:29.800 --> 0:00:33.479 joined by Vishal Agarwal, the founder and CEO of Checkmate. 0:00:33.560 --> 0:00:34.839 Thanks for joining me, Mishelle. 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:38.680 Thank you, Mike. Thanks for having me. It's fun to 0:00:38.720 --> 0:00:41.600 be here. I get your emails pretty regularly, Like I 0:00:41.600 --> 0:00:43.479 have a pretty good span blocker, but I get your 0:00:43.479 --> 0:00:47.680 emails pretty consistently consistently in my inbox. So glad to 0:00:47.760 --> 0:00:49.839 be here. Looking forward to seeing my name on there. 0:00:50.760 --> 0:00:51.480 Thank you man. 0:00:51.680 --> 0:00:54.600 I'm excited for the interview. You look sharp in your 0:00:54.640 --> 0:00:59.120 LinkedIn profile. Pick be honest. Who sported the leather jacket first? 0:00:59.280 --> 0:01:03.000 Was it you for Jensen Huang and video ceo? 0:01:03.960 --> 0:01:06.080 Yeah? I hadn't heard of in video back then. You 0:01:06.120 --> 0:01:12.840 know true story that pick is from my free wedding shoot. 0:01:12.959 --> 0:01:16.080 So we were doing a pre wedding shoot and I'm like, wait, 0:01:16.120 --> 0:01:19.160 I don't have a good LinkedIn profile picture. Can you 0:01:19.240 --> 0:01:21.480 just make one into a professional one? They're like sure, 0:01:22.240 --> 0:01:25.160 and the background I'm pretty sure it's not evident there. 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:31.000 But the background is actually a shape shot. It's at 0:01:31.040 --> 0:01:34.319 Madison Park here in Manhattan. I love that park, and 0:01:34.400 --> 0:01:37.560 the shake shot right in the middle there, so that's 0:01:37.600 --> 0:01:38.319 where it shot at. 0:01:38.400 --> 0:01:40.399 Yeah, oh good stuff. 0:01:40.400 --> 0:01:40.560 Man. 0:01:40.680 --> 0:01:43.679 Listen for the record, I prefer your style. Jensen goes 0:01:43.720 --> 0:01:46.600 a little over the top in my personal opinion. 0:01:46.840 --> 0:01:49.240 I will let him know. I think that's good feedback 0:01:49.240 --> 0:01:51.000 for him. Thank you. 0:01:53.480 --> 0:01:55.360 All right, So let's start at the beginning. How did 0:01:55.480 --> 0:01:56.360 checkmate come to be? 0:01:57.600 --> 0:02:00.560 How did Checkmate come to be? It's so funny. I'm 0:02:00.560 --> 0:02:03.200 based in New York. I've always been based here and 0:02:03.240 --> 0:02:07.760 moved here from India in about early twenty twelve. But 0:02:07.760 --> 0:02:10.680 the funniest thing is that this idea did spark off 0:02:11.240 --> 0:02:14.880 from San Francisco, right, so, as they say, the mothership 0:02:14.919 --> 0:02:19.639 always has some bearing no matter where you're at. I 0:02:19.680 --> 0:02:23.800 was working for an e commerce retail company here, wanted 0:02:23.840 --> 0:02:26.280 to try out something new, wanted to, you know, build 0:02:26.520 --> 0:02:29.960 a solution to an existing problem. And I was dining 0:02:30.000 --> 0:02:35.760 in at at a restaurant at the SF airport and 0:02:36.000 --> 0:02:38.160 it was just taking an enormous amount of time for 0:02:38.160 --> 0:02:41.600 me to get my check and like I could miss 0:02:41.600 --> 0:02:44.800 my flight, right, So that's where the idea came from. 0:02:45.040 --> 0:02:47.320 Was the first idea that we had was to build 0:02:47.360 --> 0:02:49.919 a mobile app that you could use to pay and 0:02:49.960 --> 0:02:53.280 split your check when you're dining in in restaurants, so 0:02:53.440 --> 0:02:54.800 you know, you don't have to wait for the server 0:02:54.880 --> 0:02:57.000 to bring your check, you don't have to spend time 0:02:57.040 --> 0:03:01.079 in splitting all of that. Right. That's why the name 0:03:01.280 --> 0:03:06.040 Checkmate and our website is it's a Checkmate dot Com 0:03:06.080 --> 0:03:08.760 because somebody was asking me for two hundred thousand dollars 0:03:08.800 --> 0:03:14.639 for Checkmate dot Com in twenty fifteen, and it's a 0:03:14.720 --> 0:03:17.800 Checkmate was twelve dollars. I said, that was one of 0:03:17.880 --> 0:03:20.080 the easiest decisions that I've ever made in my life. 0:03:20.440 --> 0:03:22.440 You know, I'll go with it to Checkmate dot com. 0:03:22.480 --> 0:03:27.239 So that's that's how we started, right, And then that's background. 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:31.040 That's great for the listeners. Mishal and I met at 0:03:31.080 --> 0:03:33.600 the very first Food on Demand conference, which was in 0:03:33.720 --> 0:03:37.240 Dallas back in twenty eighteen. Your comments about who owns 0:03:37.520 --> 0:03:39.400 customer data really calls the ruckus. 0:03:42.000 --> 0:03:46.000 It did it did, like, I still remember that Drinkydinky hotel, 0:03:46.160 --> 0:03:48.400 that that small lobby that was supposed to be a 0:03:48.440 --> 0:03:53.000 conference based food and demand has come a massive, massive 0:03:53.040 --> 0:03:56.720 way since then. But you know, we started with that 0:03:56.760 --> 0:04:00.560 mobile app Checkmate, and I was going door to door 0:04:00.640 --> 0:04:08.320 selling to various restaurants and an operator said like, hey, listen, 0:04:08.360 --> 0:04:11.000 what are you selling me? Seems like a nice to have, 0:04:11.920 --> 0:04:14.600 but come here, come just come behind the counter and 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:18.200 I'll show you what the real problem is. And what 0:04:18.240 --> 0:04:20.839 he showed me, I'm like, okay, this is a problem 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:24.880 worth solving. Where he had two POS systems and at 0:04:25.000 --> 0:04:30.240 least nine other tablets, and a customer had to tower 0:04:30.600 --> 0:04:34.160 over those tablets to place an order with the restaurants, 0:04:34.200 --> 0:04:37.680 so they were literally creating a wall between their customers 0:04:37.720 --> 0:04:40.600 and themselves. Like why do you exist in the first place? Right? 0:04:42.320 --> 0:04:44.479 That's how you know we looked at that problem. We said, 0:04:44.480 --> 0:04:46.720 this is a problem worth solving. We went down the 0:04:46.800 --> 0:04:51.040 route of let's integrate these orders into the POS systems. 0:04:52.560 --> 0:04:55.520 You know, in a startup, you usually make if you 0:04:55.520 --> 0:04:58.279 make one hundred decisions, ninety eight of them, you're like, 0:04:58.320 --> 0:05:00.640 why in God's name did I make those? But there 0:05:00.640 --> 0:05:03.400 are a couple that stick with you through your journey. Right. 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:06.680 The one thing that we decided since day one is 0:05:06.720 --> 0:05:09.520 we're not going to consolidate all of those orders into 0:05:09.600 --> 0:05:14.280 yet another tablet. We'll go straight to the prs And 0:05:14.320 --> 0:05:17.080 that was a harder route, but it has served us 0:05:17.120 --> 0:05:20.680 so well and that's the entire foundation today on which 0:05:20.720 --> 0:05:23.960 our business has been built. So that's how we got 0:05:24.000 --> 0:05:27.560 the start with, you know, integrating third party platforms into 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:31.599 the POS systems. A couple of POSS they had APIs 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:36.039 with the third party platforms. We scraped emails and pushed 0:05:36.080 --> 0:05:41.200 them through the POS system, became large enough for the 0:05:41.240 --> 0:05:44.280 third party platforms to give us API access and then 0:05:44.360 --> 0:05:45.080 grew from there. 0:05:47.320 --> 0:05:50.880 Yeah, it was that was a crazy time tablet hell 0:05:51.000 --> 0:05:53.920 and people having to read off a tablet and punch 0:05:54.000 --> 0:05:58.240 the order into the POS ordering accuracies or through the roof. 0:06:00.320 --> 0:06:00.480 Man. 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:02.600 That was definitely a good problem for you to solve. 0:06:05.200 --> 0:06:08.680 Not just that though, not just that. The one thing 0:06:08.720 --> 0:06:10.840 that always blew my mind whenever I walked into a 0:06:10.839 --> 0:06:14.839 new restaurant here, especially in lunchtime, is all of those 0:06:14.880 --> 0:06:19.160 tablets will be going off at the same time, right, 0:06:19.200 --> 0:06:20.960 So imagine if you have a phone in your pocket, 0:06:21.040 --> 0:06:23.320 it starts ringing. What's your first instinct, like, have to 0:06:23.360 --> 0:06:27.160 shut it right? And I imagine you're a staff, you're 0:06:27.200 --> 0:06:30.080 a deployee standing behind the counter, there's a line of 0:06:30.120 --> 0:06:34.200 customers waiting, and you have six other mobile phones going 0:06:34.240 --> 0:06:37.760 off at the same time. That always blew my mind. 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:39.320 So it was really fun to solve it. 0:06:40.640 --> 0:06:45.320 So you expanded your offering pretty significantly from there. 0:06:45.520 --> 0:06:51.120 What was next? So obviously it was the right problem 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:54.680 at the right time integrating third party orders into the 0:06:54.680 --> 0:06:59.440 POS systems. Worked with five guys on next larger enterprise customers. 0:06:59.560 --> 0:07:02.599 Rbs it's buyer Brands is also an investor in US, 0:07:03.440 --> 0:07:06.240 and as we scaled that out, what we realized was 0:07:07.200 --> 0:07:10.160 we can't survive if we are a one point solution, 0:07:10.720 --> 0:07:14.040 which means if you're only doing the third party degradation, 0:07:14.120 --> 0:07:16.640 they're going to last very long. So we had to 0:07:16.680 --> 0:07:20.320 diversify and add products that were tangential to what we 0:07:20.320 --> 0:07:25.000 were already providing. The next obvious stop was first party ordering. 0:07:26.280 --> 0:07:29.880 We were working with brands like RB's Sonic, buffaloil Wings 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:34.360 five guys, so we had the enterprise capability and now 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:38.600 we wanted to add a first party ordering, and you know, 0:07:39.240 --> 0:07:44.320 referencing back to that all time famous conference, it was 0:07:44.360 --> 0:07:48.000 always a fight between of them versus us, first party 0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:52.080 versus third party, right, and my stance since then has 0:07:52.120 --> 0:07:55.840 always been, it's not them versus us, but a restaurant operator. 0:07:55.960 --> 0:08:02.080 It's part of the same value chain to have both. Right, 0:08:02.280 --> 0:08:05.360 Unless you're a Dominos or a subway, you're not going 0:08:05.400 --> 0:08:07.960 to have the kind of marketing reach that a door 0:08:08.040 --> 0:08:10.960 Dash or a grap or a new Breed has. Use 0:08:11.000 --> 0:08:14.040 those platforms to gain customers, and when you've gotten some 0:08:14.120 --> 0:08:17.920 loyal customers, allow them to order directly with you. So 0:08:17.960 --> 0:08:21.960 it's part of the same bucket. We were only offering 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:24.040 a part of that bucket. So then we added a 0:08:24.080 --> 0:08:26.880 first party solution to us. So we acquired a company 0:08:27.000 --> 0:08:31.160 in March of twenty twenty three, right, very small company, 0:08:31.280 --> 0:08:36.320 really solid product, and started offering first party web and 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:40.280 app solution and a very very strong catering platform as well. 0:08:40.280 --> 0:08:42.840 With it first party catering, so if somebody came to 0:08:42.960 --> 0:08:47.000 your site, you could audit catering from there. What we've 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:50.320 also done is built a Kiosk solution on top of 0:08:50.360 --> 0:08:56.920 that platform to basically be able to provide the customers 0:08:57.000 --> 0:09:02.560 a very holistic sense of their digital ordering channels, and 0:09:02.600 --> 0:09:06.840 like I was saying earlier, the fundamental foundation of all 0:09:06.880 --> 0:09:13.160 of this, the fundamental foundation has always been the POS integration, right, 0:09:13.640 --> 0:09:17.800 because if we think back to the days of multiple 0:09:17.840 --> 0:09:22.640 tablets on a tablet on a tabletop, what coused a 0:09:22.720 --> 0:09:28.160 problem is these were all disintegrated, disjointed solutions. They were 0:09:28.200 --> 0:09:32.520 providing the revenue, but at what cost. I'm earning one 0:09:32.559 --> 0:09:34.960 hundred dollars, but it's costing me eighty dollars just to 0:09:35.000 --> 0:09:39.959 maintain that revenue. Right, at first, that one hundred dollars 0:09:39.960 --> 0:09:43.080 seemed good. When the accounting team got up, They're like, 0:09:43.440 --> 0:09:46.400 it's not that good. So what a lot of the 0:09:46.480 --> 0:09:49.959 enterprise customers started demanding was I just need a solution 0:09:50.120 --> 0:09:54.040 that works with my core system. And my core system 0:09:54.160 --> 0:09:58.600 is the POS. So we have the third party integration 0:09:58.720 --> 0:10:01.720 built on top of the POS. The first party solution 0:10:02.760 --> 0:10:05.640 just works out of the box, integrated with the POS. 0:10:06.080 --> 0:10:10.480 Catering works with the POS. Kiosk you eighty six something 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:13.000 on a POS, it goes out to all of your channels. 0:10:13.640 --> 0:10:17.360 Kiosk orders print to your POS. Right, So we're providing 0:10:17.400 --> 0:10:23.120 this holistic digital ordering suite to the restaurant operators, primarily 0:10:23.160 --> 0:10:29.560 to enterprise operators. As we continued moving on, the next 0:10:29.559 --> 0:10:34.480 big opportunity that came to us was the drive through 0:10:34.520 --> 0:10:41.959 AI right or in general voice AI solution. Again, as 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:46.120 we looked at the market and saw the rapid evolution 0:10:46.280 --> 0:10:50.040 of AI, we realized a lot of the companies that 0:10:50.080 --> 0:10:52.800 were developing these solutions were spending fifty percent of their 0:10:52.840 --> 0:10:56.800 time and just doing POS integrations. That's when I, like 0:10:56.880 --> 0:11:00.800 bubbe hit like, we already have this right week, so 0:11:01.000 --> 0:11:05.640 why don't we do the other fifty So we acquired 0:11:05.679 --> 0:11:12.360 a small team along with the you know, code that 0:11:12.400 --> 0:11:15.760 they had developed and the software they developed, to start 0:11:15.800 --> 0:11:19.360 down this journey of developing a very robust right through 0:11:19.360 --> 0:11:24.719 AI and a voice AI solution again going to come 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:27.800 back to the same point or just integrated with your 0:11:27.840 --> 0:11:31.640 POS it just works right out of the game. So 0:11:31.760 --> 0:11:34.319 that's where the evolution of our journey has taken us 0:11:34.760 --> 0:11:40.480 to focusing on continue to provide enterprise grade digital ordering 0:11:40.559 --> 0:11:47.480 channels so that the restaurant operators can be omnipresent. All right, 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:48.040 good stuff. 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:50.880 I'd like to dig into those verticals a little bit too. 0:11:52.120 --> 0:11:55.080 What kind of average check increases are your kiosk customers 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:58.359 getting from the technology and how much of the improvement 0:11:58.640 --> 0:12:02.520 is more consistent up selling versus giving customers more time 0:12:02.559 --> 0:12:05.680 to browse the menu versus the fact that credit card 0:12:05.679 --> 0:12:07.240 customers just tend to spend more. 0:12:09.880 --> 0:12:13.199 That was our hypothesis as well, right when we were 0:12:13.360 --> 0:12:16.520 getting into kiosk, Right, that's what everyone claimed, like, hey, 0:12:16.520 --> 0:12:18.719 we will increase your average check size by fifteen to 0:12:18.760 --> 0:12:25.480 twenty percent. We're not necessarily seeing that right at the 0:12:25.600 --> 0:12:29.160 end of the day, Like again, these I go back 0:12:29.200 --> 0:12:31.920 to the statement that one of the initial prisoner had 0:12:31.960 --> 0:12:35.080 told me, what's the nice to have versus what they 0:12:35.120 --> 0:12:39.400 must have? Chiosks have made a comeback into having into 0:12:39.480 --> 0:12:42.560 being a must have, whether it is going to increase 0:12:42.559 --> 0:12:47.280 your average check size or not. Right when I've spoken 0:12:47.320 --> 0:12:51.280 with enterprise brands walked into their restaurants, spends time on 0:12:51.360 --> 0:12:55.679 the floor that have chaosks, their thought is it may 0:12:55.760 --> 0:12:59.120 or may not increase check size, it may or may 0:12:59.160 --> 0:13:02.080 not save labor, because those are the two biggest selling 0:13:02.120 --> 0:13:07.680 points of chiosks. Right, but today customers have come to 0:13:07.720 --> 0:13:14.320 expect a kiosk. So if you're not doing kiosk you're 0:13:14.320 --> 0:13:19.079 taking away one of their preferred channels. So it's not 0:13:19.160 --> 0:13:22.400 necessarily about like, hey, come here and spend more. It's like, 0:13:22.520 --> 0:13:26.960 come use the channel that's more preferred to you. So 0:13:27.040 --> 0:13:29.800 if you want to come in browse at leisure, you 0:13:29.840 --> 0:13:31.960 don't want to have the social pressure of the person 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:35.240 in front of you or the light behind you. Use 0:13:35.280 --> 0:13:38.880 a kiosk. Right. A couple of the brands that we 0:13:38.920 --> 0:13:43.400 spoke with and actually went and saw, what they said 0:13:43.559 --> 0:13:45.920 was we've just moved the labor from behind the counter 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:51.920 to the floor. You know what I'm saying. A customer 0:13:51.960 --> 0:13:55.200 walks in the door, You greet the customer, you tell 0:13:55.200 --> 0:13:57.800 them like, please order here. If you need assistance, I'm here. 0:13:57.880 --> 0:14:02.240 Otherwise I will leave you. Right, So you're increasing that 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:05.400 touch point, you're taking away the barrier of that counter 0:14:05.480 --> 0:14:09.520 and the pos So it's been very eye opening in 0:14:09.600 --> 0:14:14.240 terms of how we are selling this. We did invent kiosks. 0:14:14.320 --> 0:14:17.480 We're not going to revolutionize kiosks, but we want to 0:14:17.520 --> 0:14:20.680 provide a channel that seamlessly just works out of the 0:14:20.720 --> 0:14:24.240 box and provides a great user experience for the brands 0:14:24.240 --> 0:14:25.600 and for the diners. 0:14:26.760 --> 0:14:29.680 Yeah, it definitely frees up employees to do more high 0:14:29.760 --> 0:14:32.800 value jobs and just bring up a cash redit sure, right, 0:14:32.840 --> 0:14:37.720 and i'd imagine you know, your clients are seeing, you know, 0:14:37.880 --> 0:14:41.280 an impact on employee turnover and employee satisfaction. 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:44.880 We are starting to roll this out with a couple 0:14:44.880 --> 0:14:50.520 of pilot with one in rollout with another large enterprise 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:56.680 customer in the three hundred plus location range, and the 0:14:56.720 --> 0:14:59.120 conversation with both of them started off is like, yeah, 0:14:59.160 --> 0:15:01.080 I don't think so we need Kiosk. I said, how 0:15:01.080 --> 0:15:05.200 do you know, why don't you try this out at 0:15:05.240 --> 0:15:08.960 one two locations on our die and see if it works. 0:15:09.000 --> 0:15:11.440 We won't charge anything, and if it doesn't work, you know, 0:15:11.520 --> 0:15:13.840 keep the hardware or shape it back. We don't care, right, 0:15:14.480 --> 0:15:17.280 And that's maybe starting to see more openness and adoption. 0:15:17.400 --> 0:15:20.400 Take oh, our customers are actually coming in and using it, 0:15:21.120 --> 0:15:23.200 and now can we have more options there? And can 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:26.560 we have pizza sliced in a few different ways there? Right? 0:15:26.960 --> 0:15:29.640 So yeah, that's what we're seeing exciting things about it. 0:15:30.680 --> 0:15:33.480 Yeah, it's really interesting too how sometimes some of these 0:15:33.480 --> 0:15:36.520 companies are maybe a little too early with technology. I 0:15:36.560 --> 0:15:40.280 mean Jack in the Box installed Kiosks in their restaurants 0:15:40.320 --> 0:15:45.080 a decade ago. Wow, uninstalled them and then went back. 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:47.400 Did not know that? Wow? 0:15:47.640 --> 0:15:51.560 Okay, yeah, yeah, So it's it's interesting, man. I think 0:15:51.640 --> 0:15:54.800 some can be a little too early. I know Brinkers 0:15:54.800 --> 0:16:01.120 tried out robot bussers right and those, but who knows, 0:16:01.160 --> 0:16:04.240 maybe a decade from now they will and things have. 0:16:04.320 --> 0:16:07.160 Changed so much the hardware what you can do with 0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:07.920 the software. 0:16:10.000 --> 0:16:16.160 So yeah, and catering is another interesting vertical. A lot 0:16:16.240 --> 0:16:18.920 of the companies I cover our working to expand their 0:16:18.960 --> 0:16:23.040 catering business, including Chapaulae through their Hat and the Ring. 0:16:23.760 --> 0:16:27.240 On their first quarter earnings call, are you seeing increasing 0:16:27.280 --> 0:16:31.320 demand from your customers for a catering solution? 0:16:31.840 --> 0:16:35.600 Yeah, In addition to the drive through the a solution 0:16:35.680 --> 0:16:38.520 that we're working on, catering is our biggest opportunity. We 0:16:38.560 --> 0:16:42.760 have definitely seen that a lot of the brands are looky. 0:16:42.880 --> 0:16:47.040 The funny thing about catering is it's it's like an iceberg. 0:16:47.920 --> 0:16:50.560 Only twenty percent of it is visible above the surface. 0:16:50.720 --> 0:16:54.720 Eighty percent of the work actually happens behind behind the scenes. 0:16:54.760 --> 0:17:00.920 So if it's a restaurant operator, you know, manager for 0:17:01.000 --> 0:17:06.479 a brand, their ability to take in orders, to schedule orders, 0:17:06.600 --> 0:17:09.320 to provide a timeline, to provide a cutoff, to do 0:17:09.400 --> 0:17:12.720 a minimum, to do a maximum, to reroute orders, to 0:17:12.760 --> 0:17:16.560 do a house account. All of these functionalities are actually 0:17:16.600 --> 0:17:19.679 behind the scenes. So the catering interface honestly is the 0:17:19.720 --> 0:17:23.199 easier one. And that's why when we looked at the 0:17:23.240 --> 0:17:26.040 catering market and then compare it with the solution that 0:17:26.119 --> 0:17:28.199 we have, we were like, this is really good. And 0:17:28.240 --> 0:17:31.560 we actually ran this by a few independent consultants as well, 0:17:32.359 --> 0:17:35.440 and again that's where we are seeing a huge opportunity 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:39.200 and scope for growth because now this gives the brands 0:17:39.240 --> 0:17:44.399 and ability to create a catering sales program around it 0:17:44.480 --> 0:17:46.880 and to create targets because now they have the tools 0:17:46.920 --> 0:17:52.960 and the solution that can empower them to do more. Right. So, yeah, 0:17:53.040 --> 0:17:55.440 definitely seeing a lot of growth there. 0:17:57.200 --> 0:18:01.719 Very cool. Last year McDonald donalds they ended their AI 0:18:02.480 --> 0:18:07.040 voice trial with IBM after some well publicized issues. On 0:18:07.080 --> 0:18:09.960 the other hand, Taco Bell and Wendy's are ramping up 0:18:10.000 --> 0:18:13.199 their trials. What have been some of the issues with 0:18:13.320 --> 0:18:16.440 voice AI to date and when do you think it'll 0:18:16.440 --> 0:18:19.360 be ubiquitous. 0:18:20.080 --> 0:18:23.320 When you think about voice AI, right, we're kind of 0:18:23.359 --> 0:18:27.040 segregating it into two aspects. One is a phone ordering AI. 0:18:27.760 --> 0:18:33.040 I think that's ubiquitous today, right if the people doing 0:18:33.080 --> 0:18:36.680 that can get the menu right. Right, It's not about 0:18:36.680 --> 0:18:39.360 the phone ordering, It's not about the AI anymore. It's 0:18:39.840 --> 0:18:42.760 a huge comportit of that is the menu right. The 0:18:42.880 --> 0:18:46.240 number of people I personally get approached by somebody saying, hey, 0:18:46.280 --> 0:18:49.600 I have a phone AI startup and here's a demo, 0:18:50.720 --> 0:18:52.520 and my only question to them is have you ever 0:18:52.560 --> 0:18:56.119 connected this to a real pos and then have a 0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:59.720 customer order? That's when the rubber hits the road, right 0:19:02.000 --> 0:19:04.920 on the drive through AI side, which is where majority 0:19:04.960 --> 0:19:07.080 of our focus and attention is right now, where we 0:19:07.119 --> 0:19:10.679 also see the largest opportunity. We think that market is, 0:19:11.480 --> 0:19:16.760 if not one, maybe two years out from being in 0:19:16.840 --> 0:19:22.360 a place where you can easily roll out and support 0:19:22.520 --> 0:19:27.280 hundreds and thousands of locations. Right now, what we are 0:19:27.359 --> 0:19:30.000 focused on is just one or two brands and getting 0:19:30.080 --> 0:19:37.359 the experience absolutely right for them. The long tail here, Mike, 0:19:37.800 --> 0:19:43.960 is really really law right. Just think about the interface. 0:19:45.200 --> 0:19:47.560 You open up your Uber Eats app and you want 0:19:47.560 --> 0:19:52.560 to order a chicken burger. They will tell you exactly 0:19:52.640 --> 0:19:55.800 how to order it. They are guiding the interface. You 0:19:55.840 --> 0:19:58.560 think you are selecting, but they're telling you this is 0:19:58.600 --> 0:20:01.760 the only way to order. You select one year, two year, three? Here, 0:20:02.520 --> 0:20:05.960 how many modifiers, how many additions, divisions and submit? It's 0:20:06.240 --> 0:20:12.159 very very defined. Drive through AI boys AI takes away 0:20:12.200 --> 0:20:17.040 that interface, takes away those boundaries. So now like I 0:20:17.200 --> 0:20:20.800 myself listen to over one hundred live calls from customers 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:26.679 every single week, my mind is the same order, how 0:20:26.760 --> 0:20:28.840 many different ways can they be to order it? But 0:20:28.920 --> 0:20:33.679 there are because every individual is different, and that is 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:36.760 what you know. Obviously, the technology is advanced massively and 0:20:36.840 --> 0:20:39.720 we are catching up. So what maybe was a five 0:20:39.800 --> 0:20:41.720 year time frame has become a one one and a 0:20:41.720 --> 0:20:44.120 half year time frame. But that's how we are looking 0:20:44.160 --> 0:20:52.000 at this is if we, as responsible restaurant technology solution providers, 0:20:53.080 --> 0:20:56.439 want to provide solution that the brands can rely on, 0:20:56.520 --> 0:20:59.639 that they can trust us with, we have to go 0:20:59.760 --> 0:21:04.280 slough first. If we start saying like we haven't drive 0:21:04.359 --> 0:21:07.200 through the ice solution that's at ninety five percent accuracy 0:21:07.240 --> 0:21:09.320 and I can service twenty brands at the same time, 0:21:10.320 --> 0:21:12.680 you're going to burn the entire industry down. No one's 0:21:12.680 --> 0:21:17.520 ever going to trust anyone else ever again, right, So again, 0:21:18.720 --> 0:21:20.800 it just feels like, you know, it's a new startup 0:21:20.840 --> 0:21:24.280 all over again, and we are working on this problem, 0:21:24.480 --> 0:21:26.840 being deep in the trenches and traveling next week to 0:21:26.880 --> 0:21:30.800 be on site, to be to listen to actual customer interactions. 0:21:31.440 --> 0:21:35.520 But such an exciting, such an exciting space to be 0:21:35.600 --> 0:21:37.040 in and to solve problems for. 0:21:38.320 --> 0:21:40.480 Yeah, it's really interesting. I remember hearing a few years 0:21:40.480 --> 0:21:43.359 ago that, you know, one of the major problems was 0:21:43.440 --> 0:21:47.720 more about accents and dialects being understood but by the 0:21:47.800 --> 0:21:50.359 voice AI. But now it sounds like it shifted more 0:21:50.400 --> 0:21:55.160 to menu customization. So is that is that accent park 0:21:55.280 --> 0:21:56.919 kind of solved? 0:21:58.520 --> 0:22:01.879 It's improved. You know, I have been told very clearly 0:22:01.880 --> 0:22:04.240 by my engineering team never to use the word solved 0:22:04.280 --> 0:22:08.000 or fixed when it comes to AI. You know how 0:22:08.119 --> 0:22:11.520 kind of inherit like. It's now become inherited in how 0:22:11.560 --> 0:22:15.440 I speak has become better. It's improved. It's not going 0:22:15.480 --> 0:22:17.760 to be completely solved. And that's where I go back 0:22:17.800 --> 0:22:22.080 to saying, the long tail here is really long. Right, 0:22:22.119 --> 0:22:24.760 you can hit that eighty percent mark, That twenty percent 0:22:24.920 --> 0:22:30.840 is going to be very It's not hard. But if 0:22:30.840 --> 0:22:33.359 you're not dedicated and focused on it, and you have 0:22:33.440 --> 0:22:36.040 your attention all over the place, then you're going to 0:22:36.040 --> 0:22:37.919 be stuck between eighty and eighty two percent for the 0:22:37.920 --> 0:22:40.320 rest of your life. But it has to be a 0:22:40.520 --> 0:22:45.560 very concerted client by client effort to say, for your brand, 0:22:45.920 --> 0:22:51.959 this is how your customers order. You know, again, it 0:22:52.040 --> 0:22:56.719 comes from a place of listening to real customer calls 0:22:56.720 --> 0:23:02.639 and recordings. The same person in three different chicken burger 0:23:02.720 --> 0:23:08.160 brands the same order, their customers will speak it out 0:23:08.200 --> 0:23:12.160 in a different way. The way you order a Chick 0:23:12.160 --> 0:23:19.040 fil A versus Popeyes versus you know, your KFC. It's fairy, 0:23:19.200 --> 0:23:22.879 very different. That's why it requires so much effort on 0:23:22.920 --> 0:23:26.960 a per brand, per region basis to make sure you 0:23:27.000 --> 0:23:33.359 get it right. And you know, we are even coming 0:23:33.400 --> 0:23:37.639 across situations with the menu differs from region to region. 0:23:38.440 --> 0:23:41.320 And it's a national brand. You know, you have thousands 0:23:41.359 --> 0:23:46.840 of locations across the country, but just because of some people, 0:23:47.119 --> 0:23:51.560 because of customers in a specific region ordering their chicken 0:23:51.600 --> 0:23:55.240 in a specific way has forced that brand to make 0:23:55.280 --> 0:23:58.600 a slightly more nuanced menu in that region. You have 0:23:58.640 --> 0:24:01.960 to account for that, right, So that's where we're seeing 0:24:01.960 --> 0:24:05.159 the challenges come up versus you know, rolling out a 0:24:05.200 --> 0:24:11.280 third party integration solution at scale. Now, that's a solved problem, right, 0:24:11.800 --> 0:24:13.640 you know the steps you have to take to get there, 0:24:14.320 --> 0:24:18.520 but drive through. We're being very very cautious and how 0:24:18.600 --> 0:24:21.000 what we promise and what we tell the brands. 0:24:21.840 --> 0:24:25.359 Yeah, it's really interesting. Staying on the topic of AI, 0:24:25.640 --> 0:24:29.560 restaurant industries being inundated with AI solutions. I think some 0:24:29.640 --> 0:24:32.040 of them were also known as big data solutions a 0:24:32.080 --> 0:24:34.439 couple of years ago, but I think a lot of 0:24:34.480 --> 0:24:37.720 them would fit into that nice to have category which 0:24:37.720 --> 0:24:41.200 we spoke to earlier, excluding the areas you know you're 0:24:41.240 --> 0:24:44.440 playing in. What restaurant pain points are AI best suited 0:24:44.600 --> 0:24:45.000 to solve? 0:24:47.400 --> 0:24:52.560 Was watching an interview by Jeff Bezos, right, and he 0:24:52.640 --> 0:24:55.679 made a statement that really stuck with me. Right, he said, 0:24:56.119 --> 0:25:02.160 AI now is like electricity. It will make better everything 0:25:02.200 --> 0:25:08.480 that it runs through. Right. That made me think. So 0:25:08.640 --> 0:25:10.840 that was one part of the conversation. Right then, I 0:25:10.880 --> 0:25:15.280 was interviewing another candidate and I was talking to him 0:25:15.280 --> 0:25:18.959 about his application of AI and what he's doing, and 0:25:19.000 --> 0:25:21.600 he's like Michell. Today, the restaurant operators, if they have 0:25:21.680 --> 0:25:23.639 a problem, they literally call me and tell me like 0:25:23.760 --> 0:25:28.359