73% of enterprise restaurant brands plan to invest in AI by 2026 — but only 9% report meaningful results. Why? In this QSR Magazine webinar, sponsored by Qu and Bikky, four restaurant industry leaders unpack the answer: AI can't fix a fragmented restaurant tech stack. Until POS, loyalty, online ordering, and third-party delivery data live in one unified guest view, every AI initiative is just scaling the same bad decisions faster.
Hosted by Ben Coley, Editor of QSR Magazine, and moderated by Jen Kern, CMO of Qu, the panel features:
- Leon DeVoyan, CTO at Dave's Hot Chicken — on running 40%+ digital transactions and what happened when the brand piloted Vision AI for order accuracy and Voice AI at the drive-thru
- Kevin Flaherty, CMO, Taco John's — on rethinking LTOs (think Potato Olés) as new-customer-acquisition tools once data is clean
- Abhinav Kapoor, Co-founder & CEO, Bikky — on building a single guest view across POS, credit card, online ordering, and loyalty
- Jen Kern, CMO, Qu — on findings from Qu's 7th annual State of Digital Restaurant Benchmark Report (nearly 200 QSR & fast-casual operators surveyed)
What you'll learn:
- What a fragmented restaurant tech stack actually looks like, and how to spot the signs
- Why loyalty-only data misleads operators (and the gap between loyalty and non-loyalty guest behavior)
- Lessons from real AI pilots that got pulled, including Voice AI at Dave's Hot Chicken drive-thrus
- How to reframe LTOs as new-customer-acquisition engines, not just sales-lift bets
- Build vs. buy in the AI era, and where most brands get it wrong
- 2026 investment priorities: 57% digital guest experience, 50% loyalty & marketing
- A 2027 menu prediction: smaller portions and snackable items in the GLP-1 era
