Restaurant AI with Matt Wampler is your weekly deep dive into the rapidly evolving world of artificial intelligence and its transformative impact on the restaurant and hospitality industry. Hosted by tech entrepreneur and industry insider Matt Wampler, this podcast explores how AI is reshaping everything from kitchen operations and customer service to marketing, labor management, and the guest experience. Whether you’re a restaurant operator, tech innovator, or hospitality enthusiast, each episode delivers insights, expert interviews, and real-world use cases that help you stay ahead in a competitive and tech-driven landscape.
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Restaurant AI with Matt Wampler is your weekly deep dive into the rapidly evolving world of artificial intelligence and its transformative impact on the restaurant and hospitality industry. Hosted by tech entrepreneur and industry insider Matt Wampler, this podcast explores how AI is reshaping everything from kitchen operations and customer service to marketing, labor management, and the guest experience. Whether you’re a restaurant operator, tech innovator, or hospitality enthusiast, each episode delivers insights, expert interviews, and real-world use cases that help you stay ahead in a competitive and tech-driven landscape.
Carl Orsbourn: Navigating the Restaurant Tech Revolution
Restaurant AI
1 hour 6 minutes
4 months ago
Carl Orsbourn: Navigating the Restaurant Tech Revolution
In this episode of the Restaurant AI Podcast, Matt Wampler, CEO and Co-Founder of ClearCOGS, sits down with Carl Orsbourn, Co-Author of Delivering the Digital Restaurant, Host, The Digital Restaurant Podcast, SVP, Invisible AI, to explore how artificial intelligence and digital transformation are reshaping the restaurant industry.
Carl shares the story behind writing Delivering the Digital Restaurant during the pandemic, why his follow-up book focuses on the long game of digital maturity, and how restaurants can shift from treating technology as a cost center to seeing it as a driver of top-line growth. He explains why the most powerful applications of AI will go beyond cutting costs to improving menu design, loyalty, and guest personalization—creating restaurant experiences as tailored as an Amazon homepage.
The conversation dives into the challenges of fragmented tech stacks, the risks of “AI washing” in SaaS solutions, and the importance of building a platform mindset that connects data silos across the business. Carl also paints a picture of the near future—where personalized AI agents help guests order, computer vision enhances operations, and GMs are freed to spend more time with their teams and guests.
From the early days of Kitchen United to advising enterprises on AI adoption today, Carl brings a candid and practical perspective on how operators can separate hype from reality and take purposeful steps toward building digitally mature, AI-powered restaurants.
Links:
Connect with Carl on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carlorsbourn
Visit Invisible Technologies: https://www.invisible.co/
Buy Carl's books: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Carl-Orsbourn/author/B099LVTD6B?ref=ap_rdr&isDramIntegrated=true&shoppingPortalEnabled=true
Connect with Matt on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/matthewjwampler
Visit ClearCOGS: https://www.clearcogs.com/
00:00 Intro
02:14 Welcome Carl Orsbourn
02:33 Writing The Digital Restaurant book series
07:20 The restaurant industry pre-pandemic
11:40 The industry after embracing AI technology
14:22 Technology and the customer experience
16:48 Technology to inform decision-making
23:09 Conditioning consumers' buying decisions
26:03 Algorithms and our true intention
29:30 Working with LLM's
34:23 Evolving SaaS tech stack
36:59 First-mover advantage to adopting tech early
44:00 LLM's ruling the world
49:03 Base technology is getting better
52:45 Applying AI to restaurant brands
56:06 Optimism about the future of AI
58:28 Third book on the way?
58:58 Bringing AI into an organization
1:01:48 Shifting the relationship with technology
1:03:26 What does the future look like?
1:05:26 Outro
Restaurant AI
Restaurant AI with Matt Wampler is your weekly deep dive into the rapidly evolving world of artificial intelligence and its transformative impact on the restaurant and hospitality industry. Hosted by tech entrepreneur and industry insider Matt Wampler, this podcast explores how AI is reshaping everything from kitchen operations and customer service to marketing, labor management, and the guest experience. Whether you’re a restaurant operator, tech innovator, or hospitality enthusiast, each episode delivers insights, expert interviews, and real-world use cases that help you stay ahead in a competitive and tech-driven landscape.
