Disruptive Innovation in the Restaurant Industry: Insights from Steve Bigari, EVP, AI for Restaurants at Soundhound

Getting to Aha! with Darshan Mehta

In this episode of Getting to Aha!, Darshan Mehta is joined by Steve Bigari, the EVP, AI for Restaurants at Soundhound. Join them as they discuss how technology, particularly AI, can enhance the restaurant experience, the mindset needed to be a disruptor in the industry, and the importance of removing friction from the customer's life. Steve also shares insight and experience from his forty years in the restaurant industry.
Steve Bigari has over forty years in the restaurant industry and has founded several businesses, including Mr. Biggs in 2005 and Synq3 Restaurant Solutions; he was the CEO of SYNQ3, a provider of restaurant solutions with a focus on technology and customer experience, for over sixteen years. Steve is currently the EVP, AI for Restaurants at SoundHound, and co-hosts Techuisine, a restaurant technology podcast exploring the latest trends and innovations in restaurant technology.
KEY TAKEAWAYS
👉 Looking forward, Steve anticipates three trends that will reshape the future of the restaurant industry: staffing, training and costs. He suggests there are serious staffing shortages that are affecting the industry and mean that some establishments are unable to open; Steve adds that there are laws being passed that may exacerbate this problem. Secondly, while AI can never fully replace a human, Steve says that there are certain processes that can be supplemented by AI. Lastly, Steve recommends adapting to different languages and cultures for those organizations that want to expand globally. He says that “everything is moving so quickly right now. I've never seen anything like it in all my years.”
👉 Steve offers seven questions to clients when somebody tries to sell them something. The first is “can you give me a demo right now?”. The second is “can we do that in a live environment in an actual restaurant that’s working today”. Number three is “are humans used anywhere in the process”, since people like to use humans to nudge along things like AI, which isn't ready yet. The fourth is “how long until the promise is realized what you're selling me today?”. The next is “what's the process by which you roll it out in restaurants?” —in short, how can it be scaled? The sixth refers to whether there’s a patent or not, and the seventh regards whether they use their own tech stack, since “if you're buying from somebody that doesn't own what they're selling, that could come back to haunt you”.
👉 Ultimately, Steve is enthusiastic about the rapid developments in the restaurant industry. Despite being a self-professed “old restaurant guy”, he loves meeting clients that are cutting-edge thinkers. He is particularly excited by advancements in drive-through technology, suggesting that it could “appear in every aspect of your life in retail, hotels, hospitality, travel”.
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And connect with the host and guests here:
Darshan Mehta on Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/darshan--mehta
Darshan's Twitter - @ahainsights
iResearch Website - https://iresearch.com
Steve Bigari on Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/steve-bigari-b827ab5
Soundhound website: https://www.soundhound.com

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Previous guests include: Kristin Luck, Shep Hyken, Whitney Dunlap-Fowler, Randy Krum, Gerard Ibarra, Jamie Flinchbaugh, Katie Anderson, Rebecca Brooks, Brooke Sellas, Dan Gingiss, Phil Irvine, Dan Fleetwood, Nicholas Zeisler, Katrina Noelle, Laura Beavin-Yates, Kalil Vicioso, Mo McKibbin, Bryant Leech and Louie Gravance.
Check out the 3 most downloaded episodes:

• Welcome to Getting to Aha!
• Making Good Decisions with Gerard Ibarra, Author of "Good Decisions, Better Outcomes”
• The Simplicity of Leadership with Katie Anderson

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