In high-turnover industries like fast casual food, recruiting workers can feel like a never-ending cycle of onboarding and offboarding. Even Chipotle—one of the fastest-growing restaurant chains in the country—isn’t immune.
“We’re constantly trying to remove friction from our general manager or anything in the restaurant,” Chipotle Chief Operating Officer Jason Kidd said at Fortune’s COO Summit on Tuesday.
But one challenge has stubbornly persisted: “One of the most painful processes we have still—and it’s getting much better—is the hiring process,” Kidd said.
The company’s turnover rate had ballooned to almost 200% in 2021, and one answer, Chipotle decided in 2024, was an AI chatbot named “Ava Cado.”
The innovation was designed to take the administrative weight of hiring off restaurant managers’ plates. The tool chats with job candidates, answers their questions about Chipotle, collects basic information, schedules interviews, and sends offer letters to candidates selected by hiring managers.
