Sony Pixel Power calrec Sony

AI Startup to Take a Bite Out of Fast-Food Labor Crunch

13/01/2022

Addressing a growing labor crisis among quick-service restaurants, startup Vistry is harnessing AI to automate the process of taking orders.

The company will share its story at the NRF Big Show, the annual industry gathering of the National Retail Federation in New York, starting Jan. 16.

They're closing restaurants because there is not enough labor, said Atif Kureishy, CEO of Vistry, which is a member of the NVIDIA Inception startup accelerator program.

At the same time, customers are placing orders in more ways than ever: for pickup, in drive-throughs and via delivery services, as well as in dining rooms.

There are new store formats, new configurations, new digital capabilities, Kureishy said.

To help restaurants keep up, Kureishy, a veteran of both NASA and Booz Allen Hamilton, assembled a team that includes veterans of the semiconductor industry and Ivy League neuroscience programs.

While restaurant labor shortages are grabbing headlines, Vistry is tackling an opportunity driven by a labor shortage demographers have been predicting for decades.

As a result, the quick-service dining industry, which does $300 billion in sales each year in the United States alone, is just one of the industries that will need to find ways to get more done with fewer people over the long term.

To address this, Vistry is working to build an AI-enabled automated order-taking solution. It's harnessing the latest natural language processing for menu understanding and speech and recommendation systems to deliver faster, more accurate order-taking and more relevant, personalized offers.

The system relies on NVIDIA Riva, a collection of technologies for building speech AI applications. It includes natural language understanding and speech recognition and synthesis capabilities. It also uses computer vision technology optimized with the NVIDIA Metropolis application framework.

Vistry's platform, powered by the NVIDIA Jetson edge AI platform and NVIDIA A2 Tensor Core GPUs, goes beyond just an automated order-taking kiosk.

Vistry's computer vision applications also help restaurants automate curbside check-ins. It can speed up drive-throughs and better predict how long it will take for customer orders to be ready. And it will track and trace orders for customers relying on food delivery services, Kureishy explains.

Buyer behaviors are changing - the guest experience is not solely in the dining room anymore, Kureishy said.

Pandemic uncertainty continues to impact dining, along with consumer expectations of a seamless, operationally excellent experience on every platform and touchpoint, said Susan Beardslee, principal analyst with ABI Research. Behind the scenes, providers must enable integrated, near real-time digital solutions to address everything from supplies to staffing to delivery optimization.

Vistry promises its solutions will be easy to deploy, fully integrated with existing restaurant systems, secure and private. They'll also provide sophisticated real-time dashboards, so restaurant operators can better understand a growing number of sales channels - from drive-through lines to dining rooms to delivery services.

All the expectations have changed, all of us want food faster, and we want to make sure the quality is preserved, Kureishy said.

Vistry is helping quick-service restaurants reduce drive-through lines, predict when customers' orders are ready, ensure food freshness, deliver curbside orders faster and optimize restaurant performance using AI and its analytics dashboard.

Who's hungry?

Learn more about NVIDIA's AI solutions for quick-service restaurants.
LINK: https://blogs.nvidia.com/blog/2022/01/13/ai-startup-fast-food-labor-cr...
See more stories from nvidia

Most recent headlines

06/10/2025

France Tlvisions Wins Prestigious 2025 EBU Technology & Innovation Award in Groundbreaking Collaboration with Dalet

France T l visions, France's leading broadcaster, has received the 2025 EBU ...

04/09/2025

Monumental Sports & Entertainment and Dalet Win Prestigious 2025 NAB Show Project of the Year Award

Monumental Sports & Entertainment (MSE), in collaboration with Dalet, has been a...

07/08/2025

Tata Motors & Dolby Bring Dolby Atmos to Harrier.ev, Redefining In-Car Entertainment Experience

July 8 2025, 22:30 (PDT) Tata Motors & Dolby Bring Dolby Atmos to Harrier.ev, R...

15/07/2025

Invitation for South African filmmakers to submit films for the 98th Annual Academy Awards (Oscars) International Feature Film category

The National Film and Video Foundation (NFVF), an agency of the Department of Sp...

15/07/2025

L3Harris Showcases Counter-Drone Capability to British Soldiers at VANAHEIM

L3Harris put its CORVUS-RAVEN counter-small UAS capability into the hands of soldiers at VANAHEIM, showcasing its ability to provide passive signal detect, enha...

15/07/2025

Netflix Leads Streaming Growth in June on the Strength of Multiple Big Titles in Nielsen's 50th Report of The Gauge

Netflix Viewing Up 13.5% vs. May, Represents 42% of Monthly Gain for Streaming ...

15/07/2025

Amagi Names Sangeeta Chakraborty as Chief Revenue Officer

SAN FRANCISCO and BENGALARU, India Sangeeta Chakraborty has been named chief revenue officer at Amagi, a cloud-based software-as-a-service (SaaS) technology pro...

15/07/2025

ATSCs New VP of Standards Development Touts 3.0s Global Potential

As part of its mandate, the Advanced Television Systems Committee the U.S. organization tasked with developing advanced broadcast TV standards promotes ATSC 3.0...

15/07/2025

QuickLink Launches StudioPro Proton and StudioPro Fusion...

QuickLink, the leading global provider of multi-camera video productions and remote contributions, announces the launch of two innovative control panels Studi...

15/07/2025

DPA Microphones Welcomes Chris Kontopanos

Chris Kontopanos has joined leading high-quality microphone solutions manufacturer, DPA Microphones, as the company's new Regional Sales Manager for the Mid...

15/07/2025

Magnifi Brings Seamless AI-Powered Solutions to Revolutio...

Magnifi by VideoVerse, a global leader in AI-powered video automation, has launched a major platform upgrade built to simplify live and archival video editing f...

15/07/2025

Telestream IBC 2025 Showcase Powers Friction Free Scalabl...

Telestream, a global leader in media workflow technologies, will preview its latest innovations at IBC2025, Stand 7.B21. This year's showcase highlights how...

15/07/2025

IBC2025 elevates attendee experience with seamless GVB tr...

IBC2025 is set to transform the onsite experience for its global attendees with the launch of a pioneering new feature: full integration of Amsterdam's GVB ...

15/07/2025

ASB GlassFloor Ignites Beats N Buckets with Game-Changing...

Music, sport and technology collided in spectacular fashion as ASB GlassFloor powered the debut of Beats N Buckets, Germany's first Basketball meets Hip-Ho...

15/07/2025

The Collectv Names Industry Leader Peter Russell as new M...

The Collectv, the Emmy award-winning broadcast solutions and workflows consultancy - and winner of Broadcast Tech's Team of the Year is delighted to announc...

15/07/2025

SipRadius builds in security and performance for IP conne...

SipRadius, the expert in secure, low latency media transport, will showcase how broadcasters and media companies can take control of fragmented IP workflows at ...

15/07/2025

beIN ASIA PACIFIC Enhances Broadcast Distribution and Int...

Appear, the global leader in live production technology, today announced its strategic partnership with beIN ASIA PACIFIC, a leading multi-platform sports media...

15/07/2025

Broadpeak to Reveal Pioneering Solutions to Scale Monetiz...

Company marks 15 years of innovation at the show Broadpeak, a leader in streaming and monetization at scale, will return to IBC (Hall 1, Stand F83. RAI, Amster...

15/07/2025

Hitomi Broadcast Demonstrates MatchBox Everywhere at IBC2...

New software solutions extend trusted timing measurement across broadcast, venue, and professional AV applications Hitomi Broadcast, the market leader in audi...

15/07/2025

Telycam Unveils Elgato Stream Deck Plug-in for PTZ Camera Portfolio

SHENZHEN, China Telycam has added control options for its portfolio of pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras with a new plug-in for Elgato's Stream Deck family of con...

15/07/2025

Chyron LIVE Completes AWS Foundational Technical Review

MELVILLE, N.Y. Chyron said its Chyron LIVE cloud-native live production solution has successfully completed the Amazon Web Services (AWS) Foundational Technical...

15/07/2025

Xumo Expands Smart TV Portfolio With Westinghouse Launch

PHILADELPHIA The Xumo streaming platform joint venture between Comcast and Charter has announced the nationwide launch of a new line of Xumo TVs from Westinghou...

15/07/2025

Chris Kontopanos Joins DPA as Regional Sales Manager

LONGMONT, Colo. DPA Microphones said Chris Kontopanos has joined the microphone solutions provider as its new regional sales manager, Mid-Atlantic....

15/07/2025

SES Successfully Prices 1 Billion Dual-Tranche Bond Offering with Strong 5.5x Oversubscription

NOT FOR DISTRIBUTION IN OR INTO OR TO ANY PERSON LOCATED OR RESIDENT IN THE UNIT...

15/07/2025

News Corp Authorizes New $1 Billion Stock Repurchase Program and Intends to Accelerate Pace of Buyback

News Corp Authorizes New $1 Billion Stock Repurchase Program and Intends to Acce...

15/07/2025

Netflix Announces the Start of Production of 'Los secretos de la cortesana'

Back to All News Netflix Announces the Start of Production of Los secretos de l...

15/07/2025

Harmonic to Showcase Breakthrough Video Streaming and Broadcast Delivery Innovations at IBC2025

Harmonic's Hybrid, AI-Powered and Live Sports Streaming Innovations are Key ...

15/07/2025

The Next Level 4099 CORE+ Instrument Microphone

The well-known and well-loved 4099 has been completely revamped. It features amazing CORE+ technology, which eliminates distortion and extends dynamic range, a ...

15/07/2025

Comscore Partners with HyphaMetrics to Launch Advanced Person-Level Audience Measurement and CTV Program-Level Reporting

Comscore Partners with HyphaMetrics to Launch Advanced Person-Level Audience Mea...

15/07/2025

All Ireland Football semi-finals and Tailteann Cup Final draw large audiences to RT

Peak audiences of over half a million tune into both Kerry v Tyrone and Donegal ...

15/07/2025

PROTON Announces Production Facility Expansion Ahead of IBC2025

PROTON Announces Production Facility Expansion Ahead of IBC2025 posted: 15/07/2025 Proton Announces Production Facility Expansion Ahead of IBC2025 Alongs...

15/07/2025

Deadline Extended - Create a Project G-Assist Plug-In for a Chance to Win an NVIDIA GeForce RTX GPU and Laptop

Submissions for NVIDIA's Plug and Play: Project G-Assist Plug-In Hackathon a...

14/07/2025

L3Harris Secures Contract for Royal Moroccan Air Force C-130 Fleet Upgrade

The Royal Moroccan Air Force hosted a C-130 award ceremony with L3Harris Technologies President of Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Jason Lambert a...

14/07/2025

Nielsen launches CTV Ad Spend Data into its UK Ad Intel product

UK launch set for September, following on from recent US and Germany releases London - UK, July 14, 2025 - Nielsen, a global leader in audience measurement, da...

14/07/2025

Telycam Unveils Elgato Stram Deck Plug-in for PTZ Camera Portfolio

SHENZHEN, China Telycam has added control options for its portfolio of pan-tilt-zoom (PTZ) cameras with a new plug-in for Elgato's Stream Deck family of con...

14/07/2025

Nominations Now Open for Best of Show Awards at IBC2025

The awards are open to IBC2025 show exhibitors and offer a valuable platform for companies to raise awareness for the new products and solutions they will be la...

14/07/2025

Clear-Com Expands Arcadia Central Station with Updates In...

Clear-Com is excited to announce a significant expansion of the award-winning Arcadia Central Station with new software updates. Together, these releases dram...

14/07/2025

Daktronics and Grass Valley Announce Strategic Partnershi...

Grass Valley and Daktronics today announced a strategic technology partnership that unites Grass Valley's live production expertise with Daktronics' lea...

14/07/2025

Veset Partners with swXtch io to Deliver Cloud Multicasti...

Cloud playout solutions provider, Veset, and swXtch.io, provider of cloud-based multicast and reliable networking solutions, are partnering to deliver multicast...

14/07/2025

Tintri Supercharges Global Partner Programme with Powerfu...

Tintri , a DDN subsidiary and leader in AI-powered data management solutions, today announces a game-changing and award-winning refresh to its global Partner P...

14/07/2025

HighField AI Now Commercially Available Advancing Broadca...

HighField AI, the broadcast industry's first agentic and multimodal AI platform for automating graphics production, is now commercially available. Developed...

14/07/2025

Encompass powers DAZN global broadcast of FIFA Club World...

Encompass Digital Media has today announced that it has been delivering a complex global services project for DAZN, the world s leading sports entertainment pla...

14/07/2025

MASV Showcases the Future of Mass File Movement and Monet...

MASV (massive.io), the fastest, most reliable large file transfer platform trusted by over 10,000 global organizations, announced today it will showcase its nex...

14/07/2025

Calrec to unveil new Argo Software Updates at IBC 2025 an...

Calrec is introducing a series of usability, customisation and system enhancements across the entire range of Argo consoles at IBC 2025, on Stand 8.C47. Look ou...

14/07/2025

ITV selects Fincons Group as strategic partner for their...

Fincons Group, IT business consultancy and systems integrator company with more than 40 years of experience in the market, is proud to announce a new engagement...

14/07/2025

Intinor Showcases Enhanced User Experience and Workflow F...

Intinor returns to IBC to present the latest updates to its Direkt series. A key development on show is Intinor Direkt Management (IDM), a web-based interface f...

14/07/2025

Trailer Out Now! Netflix and YRF Entertainment's Mandala Murders' Builds a Gripping World of Mythological Crime-Thriller

Back to All News Trailer Out Now! Netflix and YRF Entertainment's Mandala ...

14/07/2025

25 Former Athletes Seek Redemption in Final Draft,' Japan's First Physical Survival Series, Premiering August 12

Back to All News 25 Former Athletes Seek Redemption in Final Draft,' Japan...