Justin Skelton, the chief information officer at Dine Brands, envisions a world in the not-too-distant future where an IHOP server can scan a QR code and pull up every detail about a guest’s order preferences and history. Using generative AI to guide them, servers can then suggest the perfect side dishes to complement that order of pancakes and sausage.
This AI-powered “recommendation engine,” which utilizes Google Cloud’s recommendations AI technology, is already in production for online orders at the restaurant operator’s IHOP and Applebee’s chains and will also roll out soon at Dine’s Fuzzy’s Taco Shop. It blends together a guest’s past order history with the buying patterns from a broader pool of similar diners to generate more personalized menu pairings.
But there could be even greater opportunities for targeted, in-person upselling when the technology could be deployed across the chain’s 3,5000 brick-and-mortar restaurants.
“There’s a lot of new technologies we’re looking at that we want to bring to the market,” says Skelton, who has served as CIO at Dine since 2019, after prior technology leadership roles at CVS Health, Bank of America, and Allstate.
Skelton says that all of his generative AI bets are intended to support three outcomes: boost revenue and traffic, improve the guest experience, and bolster worker productivity. Because he runs a small IT team, Skelton says he has to be very careful about his technology bets. “We’re not prepared to go and invest in and hire a lot of people,” says Skelton.
