Seven out of ten restaurants will employ or enhance the use of artificial intelligence in 2024, including chatbots and photo and video generative tools, to offer content increasingly tailored to customer tastes.
Furthermore, the wider use of technologies both in the dining room and in the kitchen is consolidated, from robotics to order and reservation automation, from management software to communication and marketing strategies, making 2024 the year of the evolution of restaurants into highly technological realities .
For one restaurateur in two, these tools allow staff to save up to 20 hours of work per week.
This is what emerges from the research "Technology in Catering - Scenarios and Opportunities" carried out by the Catering Observatory to photograph the tech approach of Italian restaurants in 2023 and outline the scenarios of the year that has just begun.
The investigation, carried out via a survey on the database of the web app for reservations Plateform, installed on over 2000 businesses throughout Italy, and on the community of the RistoratoreTop agency made up of more than 13 thousand entrepreneurs, will be presented on the occasion of the fourth edition of the Forum of Catering, which will be held in Padua on 12 and 13 March in the presence of hundreds of operators in the sector and which will have evolution as its main theme.
The survey shows that 84% of restaurateurs use technological tools in the dining room, mainly for cash management, reservations and orders.
Since large fast food chains, more oriented towards this type of optimization, were excluded from the survey, it is interesting to note that 9% use self-order systems, including totems and digital menus integrated with the cash register.
This allows us to resolve, albeit partially, the still persistent problem of finding staff at the tables.
However, only 1% currently has room robots.
Restaurateurs who use technology in the kitchen represent 77% and use supports capable of raising the quality of production, optimizing time and resources.
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