AI in Restaurants: What 29 Vendors Actually Ship

Clover (Fiserv) Shipping

Clover Reserve. A fine-dining POS and hospitality platform licensed from Tabit and marketed as AI-driven, handling multi-course pacing, floor management and tableside check operations.

Source: Fiserv investor relations · May 12, 2026

Toast Shipping

Toast IQ Grow. A paid marketing product that uses AI to build and run email, SMS and social campaigns, paired with a human marketer, at $499 per month.

Source: Toast newsroom · May 5, 2026

PAR Technology Shipping

PAR Intelligence. An AI layer running across PAR's point of sale, loyalty, digital ordering, payments and back-office systems that reads pooled store data, surfaces performance gaps between locations, builds and deploys loyalty offers, and answers plain-language questions.

PAR describes a growing suite of agents already deployed and names three of them: an Insights Agent, an Offers Agent and a Developer Assist Agent. Its own product FAQ answers the question "Is this fully built, or is more coming?" with "PAR Intelligence is live and delivering measurable outcomes today." Reach is still expanding rather than complete - in its Q2 2026 earnings release PAR said it was on track to deploy PAR Intelligence to 50,000 sites by year end, which is a target and not a finished rollout.

Source: PAR Technology newsroom · Apr 7, 2026

Oracle (MICROS Simphony) Announced

Simphony Cloud Smart Assistant. A generative-AI helper embedded in Simphony Cloud POS that gives staff context-aware troubleshooting answers for on-screen errors such as printer failures and connectivity problems.

Announced at the Oracle Restaurants Summit. Oracle states general availability will follow within 12 months of the announcement, so this is not shipping yet.

Source: Oracle newsroom · Mar 18, 2026

Lightspeed Commerce Shipping

Lightspeed AI. A conversational layer in Lightspeed Restaurant that lets operators ask questions about their business in natural language and returns charts, insights and recommended actions instead of raw reports.

Source: Lightspeed newsroom · Jan 9, 2026

NCR Voyix Shipping

Voyix Insight. An analytics application with conversational search that returns real-time insights, recommended actions and alerts for forecasting, labor and shrink.

Source: NCR Voyix newsroom · Jan 7, 2026

TouchBistro No verified AI

No AI product could be verified from a TouchBistro primary source. Its press archive through August 2026 contains survey reports about how operators feel about AI, not a TouchBistro AI product.

No primary source found as of Aug 31, 2026.

Uber Eats Shipping

Cart Assistant. Lets grocery shoppers submit a shopping list as text or an image and automatically builds a cart from it, accounting for item availability and prior order history.

Source: Uber newsroom · Jul 2, 2026

Olo Shipping

Guest Intelligence Signals. Analyzes a restaurant brand's guest behavior each month and returns plain-English findings on what changed, why it matters and what action to take.

Source: Olo Summer 2026 release · Jul 1, 2026

Olo Shipping

Brand-trained AI agents. Agents that automatically respond to online reviews, optimize local listings and publish Google Posts so a brand's locations surface in AI-driven search.

Source: Olo Summer 2026 release · Jul 1, 2026

DoorDash Shipping

Ask DoorDash. A conversational search feature in the consumer app that lets users describe what they want in plain language, upload a recipe photo or grocery list to build a cart, and book restaurant reservations.

Source: DoorDash newsroom · Jun 11, 2026

Grubhub Shipping

Ordering inside Alexa+. Order from Grubhub by talking to Alexa, with the checkout finished in the assistant instead of handing you back to an app.

Worth separating from the rest of the agentic-ordering noise, because this one actually completes. Grubhub's own words: diners can explore options, build their order, and complete checkout with hands-free navigation through natural dialogue, on Echo Show 8 devices and larger. Grubhub also turned up inside ChatGPT in June 2026, but that is discovery with a handoff back to Grubhub to pay, and it is not listed here for a specific reason: Grubhub never published anything about it. The only account is a statement the company gave to one trade publication, and this page does not run on trade press.

Source: Grubhub newsroom · Jun 4, 2026

DoorDash Shipping

AI Retouch, AI Replate and Match the Style. Merchant tools that clean up backgrounds and lighting on existing food photos, regenerate dishes with improved plating, and apply one photo's visual style across other menu items.

Source: DoorDash newsroom · May 4, 2026

Slice No verified AI

No named AI product shipped to pizzeria customers could be verified from a Slice primary source. Slice's own marketing and phone-ordering pages describe automated campaigns and human phone operators rather than AI.

No primary source found as of Aug 31, 2026.

Omilia Shipping

Omilia Voice AI. Takes drive-thru orders using each store's live menu, stock levels and limited-time offers, with noise filtering and low-latency conversational responses instead of scripted prompts.

This is the vendor behind Taco Bell's largest voice AI deployment, at more than 890 U.S. restaurants across 38 states.

Source: Omilia via Business Wire · Jul 7, 2026

SoundHound AI Shipping

Smart Ordering, Dynamic Drive-Thru and Smart Answering. Voice AI agents that answer restaurant phone calls and drive-thru lanes, take food orders conversationally, answer menu questions and send the completed order into the POS.

Casey's expanded its deployment to more than 2,600 stores in April 2026 after the agents handled over 21 million guest interactions.

Source: SoundHound newsroom · Apr 23, 2026

ConverseNow Shipping

ConverseNow Voice AI. Generative-AI voice agents that take restaurant orders over the phone and in the drive-thru and push them into the restaurant's order and menu management system.

ConverseNow acquired competitor Valyant AI in July 2024 and says it is deployed across thousands of locations.

Source: ConverseNow via PR Newswire · Apr 16, 2026

Presto Phoenix Changed

Presto Voice AI. Takes drive-thru orders by voice for quick-service chains, handling menu customizations and region-specific items and passing orders to the store's ordering systems.

The predecessor public company, Presto Automation, was delisted from Nasdaq and its assets sold at auction in December 2024 with shareholders receiving nothing. The SEC charged Presto Automation in January 2025 with making materially false and misleading statements about Presto Voice. The surviving private company raised $10M in January 2026.

Source: Presto Phoenix via Business Wire · Jan 8, 2026

OpenTable Shipping

AI Concierge. A conversational discovery tool that lets diners describe what they are looking for in plain language, the way they would ask a friend, and surfaces OpenTable restaurants to book.

Part of the largest product release in OpenTable history: more than 20 new and updated features announced on August 26, 2026, many of them AI. OpenTable reports 500,000+ monthly active global users for AI Concierge, and lists integrations with Google Search, Maps and Gemini, ChatGPT, Microsoft Copilot, Perplexity and Amazon Alexa+. It says LLM integrations drove 17x more seated diners year over year, and that among the new diners those integrations brought in were some who spent on average 20% more compared to other channels - a subset, in the wording the release itself uses, rather than the whole group. Every performance figure in the release is footnoted by OpenTable as based on internal OpenTable data.

Source: OpenTable via PR Newswire · Aug 26, 2026

OpenTable Announced

Conversational Reporting. Lets operators ask questions about their own restaurant data in conversational language and get an answer back directly, without building a dashboard, running an export or waiting on an analyst.

OpenTable labels this "(in testing)" in the same release that announces it, and it is the only one of the twenty-plus features carrying that label. Whenever it goes generally available will be a useful marker for how quickly this part of the category is maturing.

Source: OpenTable via PR Newswire · Aug 26, 2026

SevenRooms Shipping

SevenRooms Voice AI. Answers every call around the clock, books the table directly into the reservation system, recognizes repeat callers and applies the preferences already on their profile.

Source: SevenRooms · Aug 18, 2026

Yelp Shipping

Yelp Host. A voice AI phone agent that answers calls, books and modifies reservations through Yelp Guest Manager, takes pickup orders, and detects and replies in the caller's language.

Passed one million calls in June 2026, growing an average of 38 percent month over month since its October 2025 launch.

Source: Yelp investor relations · Jul 28, 2026

Resy (American Express) Shipping

Resy connector for Claude. Lets people discover U.S. Resy restaurants and check table availability inside a Claude conversation, then complete the booking on Resy.

Source: Resy newsroom · Apr 23, 2026

Yelp Shipping

Yelp Assistant. A conversational tab in the Yelp mobile apps that answers local-business questions using Yelp reviews and photos and books tables at venues running Yelp Guest Manager.

Source: Yelp investor relations · Apr 21, 2026

Bikky Shipping

Data Assistant. A natural-language query tool that answers questions about a brand's sales, menu performance, loyalty, traffic and promotions without building dashboards or spreadsheets.

Source: Bikky · undated

Tock No verified AI

No AI feature shipped under the Tock brand could be verified. Tock's venues are being migrated onto the Resy platform following American Express's acquisition.

No primary source found as of Aug 31, 2026.

Serve Robotics Shipping

Characters. A brand mascot built onto a Serve sidewalk delivery robot that customers can talk with in real time, powered by what Serve calls a curated conversational AI model. The first is Chomp, a hamburger-wrapped robot co-created with Grubhub.

Worth reading precisely, because the AI in this release sits in the advertising layer rather than in the driving. The operationally useful item announced alongside it is Beacon, a countertop device with built-in cellular that alerts staff the moment a robot arrives for pickup and requires nothing from the restaurant beyond power - no tablet, no additional hardware, no changes to existing systems. That puts robot delivery within reach of independent operators whose back of house could not support it before, which is usually the last group these rollouts reach. Serve previewed Beacon rather than shipping it, so it is not listed as available. The same release brought robot delivery to the Grubhub marketplace across more than 100 participating merchants in Chicago and nearly 200 in Los Angeles.

Source: Serve Robotics via GlobeNewswire · Aug 17, 2026

MarginEdge Shipping

MarginEdge AI Connector. Connects a restaurant's invoice, purchasing and sales data to ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini so the operator can query it in natural language alongside data from other business systems.

Source: MarginEdge via GlobeNewswire · Aug 4, 2026

Winnow Shipping

Winnow Vision. A camera and connected scale above the bin identify and weigh each item of food thrown away with no staff input, and report the cost and volume of waste back to the kitchen.

The fifth-generation unit moved identification on-device. Winnow acquired Singapore-based Lumitics in July 2026.

Source: Winnow · Jul 23, 2026

Restaurant365 Shipping

R365 AI Dashboards. Operators type a request in plain language and R365 builds the corresponding dashboard from their accounting, inventory, labor and POS data without manual report configuration.

R365's AI Advisor agent and one-click AI Scheduling were announced as early access only, not general availability.

Source: Restaurant365 via PR Newswire · May 12, 2026

7shifts Shipping

AI Schedule Importer. Uploads a photo or spreadsheet of an existing schedule and automatically extracts the departments, roles, employee names and shifts to populate a new 7shifts account.

Limited to trial accounts and one import per account, so it is an onboarding tool rather than an ongoing production feature.

Source: 7shifts knowledge base · Apr 27, 2026

Crunchtime Shipping

Voice-Based Inventory. Store managers speak inventory counts into the Crunchtime mobile app instead of typing them, and the app transcribes each count into the inventory record.

Free to all Inventory customers through June 30, 2026, now a paid premium AI license. Crunchtime's AI Analyst, Photo Intelligence and AI Actions are early access only.

Source: Crunchtime release notes · Mar 18, 2026

MarginEdge Shipping

Tom. An in-product assistant that reads a restaurant's MarginEdge data to explain cost overages and sales swings and suggest prep, ordering and waste adjustments.

MarginEdge also ships AI sales forecasting, a recipe uploader that auto-matches ingredients to purchased products, and AI-assisted invoice coding.

Source: MarginEdge · undated

Agot AI Shipping

Kitchen Awareness Platform. Ceiling-mounted cameras and computer vision track each order through kitchen assembly and alert staff to stop the order before an incorrect item is bagged or handed off.

Agot's publicly documented large-scale work is a Yum! Brands pilot across roughly 20 locations reported in 2022. No primary source since then confirms a named production rollout.

Source: Agot AI · undated

Taco Bell runs the biggest deployment and admits humans are sometimes better

At more than 890 restaurants in 38 states, a voice AI takes your order, filters road noise, and tells you an item is out at that specific store before you reach the window.

A crew member on a headset took the order, and you usually found out something was sold out at the window. Taco Bell says transactions are now on par with or faster than a person.

In August 2025 Taco Bell publicly slowed the rollout after customer complaints and pranks, including a viral order for 18,000 cups of water. Leadership conceded the busiest stores are better served by human order-takers.

Source: Nation's Restaurant News · Jul 8, 2026

McDonald's pulled its AI out, then quietly started again

At five U.S. test restaurants a Google-powered system called ArchIQ greets you, repeats your order on the confirmation screen with the total, and can recall a regular's usual.

From 2021 to 2024 roughly 100 McDonald's ran an IBM system that measured only low-80s order accuracy against a 95% internal target, and videos of botched orders spread widely. McDonald's ended it. ArchIQ now completes 90% of orders without what McDonald’s calls a “human escalation” — which is not the same as no person being involved — at five stores, out of about 13,000.

If you have not personally seen this, that is because almost nobody has.

Source: ABC News · Jun 8, 2026

Bojangles regulars are the ones telling us how it actually feels

An AI named Bo-Linda greets you at 450+ of about 880 drive-thrus in English or Spanish, explains menu items, handles requests down to "make both pieces thighs," and upsells.

A Bojangles employee took the order, and upselling happened only if that person bothered. Bojangles told Axios that Bo-Linda now handles 98.5% to 99% of orders successfully, with a human stepping in roughly 1% of the time.

Axios talked to customers in Bojangles' home market and got both. One was impressed it correctly handled "both my pieces to be thighs." But the reporter's own order arrived without the sauce she asked for, and one customer said the sales tactics were enough that she very rarely goes there anymore. The recurring complaint is that it feels impersonal.

Source: Axios Charlotte · Jun 7, 2026

The reservation platform behind the restaurant now has more than 20 voice AI partners

Call a restaurant that books through OpenTable and the voice that answers may be one of more than 20 voice AI partners plugged into it, taking the booking without pulling a host away from the floor or after operating hours.

The phone rang at the host stand and someone picked up between seating tables, or it rang out after close. OpenTable says those partners have seated 3 million diners to date, an increase of 270% in 2026 over the same period in 2025.

Set against the scale of the platform, that reads as early rather than finished, which is the encouraging part - OpenTable's own boilerplate says it helps more than 70,000 restaurants worldwide fill 2 billion seats a year, so the growth is landing on a base with a great deal of room left in it. The figures are footnoted by OpenTable as internal data.

Source: OpenTable via PR Newswire · Aug 26, 2026

Yelp's AI host passed a million calls in eight months

It answers menu and parking questions, quotes wait times, books and cancels reservations, takes pickup orders, and texts you a link mid-call.

A host picked up between seating tables, or didn't. Yelp Host handled more than 1 million calls between its October 2025 launch and June 2026, growing an average of 38% month over month — including more than 40,000 calls on Mother's Day weekend alone.

Nothing in Yelp's announcements says the caller is told they are talking to AI.

Source: Yelp · Jul 28, 2026

Your call to Casey's is answered by software

Phone a Casey's to order pizza and an AI agent picks up, answers menu questions, and places the order.

The call rang into a store where whoever was free eventually answered, often after a long hold and at dinner rush frequently not at all. It is now live at 2,600+ of about 2,900 stores.

The real win here is that somebody answers at 6 p.m. on a Friday, not that the conversation is better.

Source: C-Store Dive · Apr 24, 2026

DoorDash labels its AI-altered photos. This is the good news.

If a photo says "AI-enhanced," DoorDash has used AI on it — which can mean re-plating the dish, replacing or adding the table and background, filling in missing parts of the image, or changing the camera angle.

The photo was a photograph. DoorDash says it does not alter the actual food, ingredients, or portion size, and that millions of photos have been improved this way.

This is the only per-photo AI disclosure I could find on any U.S. delivery app. No third party verifies the claim about what it doesn't change.

Source: DoorDash Consumer Help Center · undated

Diners warmed to restaurant AI over the past year, and said clearly what they want in return

In 2025, 41% said they would choose a restaurant that avoided AI altogether. A year later PAR puts average discomfort with restaurant AI at 27% - a differently worded question, so the two do not stack into a single clean fall. Both point the same way, and PAR says it plainly: nearly three in four diners are now open to AI playing some role, depending on how it is used.

A year ago the top concern was AI replacing workers, at 64%. This year 43% rank transparency first - being told when and how AI is used - which PAR puts at nearly three times any other factor. The question moved from whether the technology takes the job to whether anyone is going to mention it, and that is a far more answerable question for an operator.

The boundaries came through just as clearly, which is what makes the set useful: 47% say AI goes too far when it replaces most human interaction, 44% say the same when they cannot easily reach a person, and only 7% believe a restaurant cannot be too automated. Read it knowing the survey was commissioned by PAR, which sells the platform the report recommends. PAR also published its sample size, panel, field date and the prior-year survey it measures against, which is more methodology than most vendor research discloses.

Source: PAR Technology via Business Wire (1,000 U.S. adults fielded June 2026 through Dynata) · Aug 18, 2026

Restaurants think you want this about twice as much as you do

21.7% of consumers say they prefer dealing with an AI agent. The businesses deploying them believe 42.7% of their customers do.

Nobody was measuring.

32.7% of consumers actively avoid AI; businesses put that number at 10.3%. That gap is most of the explanation for why so much of this feels imposed rather than offered.

Source: Metrigy AI Consumer Experience Index, 2Q 2026 (n=1,000 consumers / 759 businesses) · Aug 13, 2026

Talking to an assistant can now finish the order, on one of them

Grubhub says you can browse restaurants, build the order and complete checkout inside Amazon's Alexa+ without picking up a phone, on an Echo Show 8 or larger.

You opened the app and scrolled.

That is the exception, not the rule. Most assistant integrations hand you back at the finish line - ask Claude for a table and it shortlists Resy restaurants and checks availability, but the reservation, deposit and no-show policy stay on Resy. Read any of these by asking one question: where does the money actually move.

Source: Grubhub newsroom · Jun 4, 2026

One in five diners already uses AI to pick a restaurant

22% of consumers have used a tool like ChatGPT or Gemini to help choose where to eat, and about three-quarters say they're comfortable letting AI book the table.

You asked a friend, or read reviews yourself.

Delivery platforms know this: DoorDash cites research that restaurant listing sites supply more than 41% of the sources AI tools cite when recommending a restaurant.

Source: DoorDash 2026 Restaurant Industry Trends Report (survey by Dynata, n=3,001) · May 18, 2026

Most people using it don't believe it

65% of Americans used AI search in the past six months and 57% use AI to find local businesses monthly — but only 15% trust it a lot, and 63% double-check the answer somewhere else.

You trusted a search result, or a friend.

76% say they want to see the sources behind an AI answer. Most restaurant AI assistants don't show any.

Source: Yelp / Morning Consult (n=2,202 U.S. adults, Feb 26–28 2026) · Apr 14, 2026

The FTC has formally asked whether delivery apps charge different people different prices

Question 26 of an FTC advance notice asks to what extent online food delivery platforms charge different prices, fees or charges to individuals for the same goods or services based on individualized consumer data - geolocation, demographics, purchasing history, app usage, browser history, device hardware and IP address. The agency calls this personalized pricing.

There was no federal proceeding examining the question. The comment period closed on May 18, 2026 with 438 comments filed, and the next move belongs to the Commission.

An advance notice is the earliest stage of rulemaking - it asks questions rather than proposing a rule, so nothing here is settled, scheduled, or a finding against anyone. It is listed because it is the most consequential open item in the category and because the question is now formally on the record, which is worth knowing whether you order delivery or sell through it.

Source: Federal Trade Commission, Federal Register (Project No. P267101) · Apr 16, 2026

Chili's looked at AI answering the phone and decided against it

Rebuilt Wi-Fi, 23,000 new iPads for servers, 9,000 kitchen screens - and deliberately no AI taking your phone order.

You waited on a server to run payment, and orders were written on paper.

The most useful counter-example on this page, because it is a large chain declining in public rather than quietly piloting. Brinker's chief information officer concluded that the available AI phone-ordering systems were more likely to frustrate guests than improve their experience. His team screened several dozen possible AI uses down to six or seven worth investigating, with inventory forecasting first in line, and a governance group now reviews that list monthly. The chain had already paused a 61-restaurant test of a Bear Robotics service robot after management saw no clear path to a financial return. Note the sequencing, which is the actual lesson: the network and the devices came first, and AI only where it does a defined job.

Source: Restaurant Technology News · Aug 1, 2026

Texas Roadhouse is deliberately not calling it AI

A kitchen display system paces your food, guest-management software decides how the dining room is seated, and you can pay at the table.

Cooks worked off paper tickets, hosts managed the wait by hand, and you waited for a server to run your card.

The CEO frames all of it as execution support rather than AI, and says explicitly it is not being used to cut labor. Server handhelds are still in a deliberately slow pilot, so most guests still order the traditional way.

Source: FSR Magazine · May 8, 2026

Ask whether you're talking to a person

In most of the country nobody has to volunteer it. Maine is the clearest exception, and Utah requires an honest answer if you ask — several more state laws switch on in 2027. A growing share of restaurant phone lines are answered by software, and asking plainly is still the fastest way to find out.

Assume the food photo was worked on

On DoorDash, look for the “AI-enhanced” tag, which means the image may have been re-plated, had its background replaced or had missing parts filled in.

Almost nothing buys itself

Claude hands you to Resy to book. Ask DoorDash and Uber Eats Cart Assistant build a draft cart you confirm. The one documented exception is Grubhub inside Alexa+, where the company says checkout completes in the assistant. If any other tool claims it completed a purchase you never confirmed, that's worth a second look.

Which restaurant POS systems actually have AI in 2026?

Toast, Lightspeed, NCR Voyix, Clover and PAR all ship a conversational or agentic AI layer over their own POS data today. Oracle has announced one for Simphony but it is not generally available yet. TouchBistro has no AI product that can be verified from a primary source.

Does OpenTable have AI?

Yes. On August 26, 2026 OpenTable announced more than 20 new and updated features, many of them AI. AI Concierge, a conversational way for diners to find restaurants, is live and OpenTable reports 500,000+ monthly active global users. Conversational Reporting, which lets operators ask questions about their own data in plain language, is labeled in testing rather than generally available. OpenTable also lists more than 20 voice AI partners that book directly into its reservation system.

Do delivery apps charge different people different prices?

That is an open federal question rather than a settled fact. The FTC's April 2026 advance notice of proposed rulemaking asks directly, in Question 26, to what extent online food delivery platforms set prices and fees using individualized data such as geolocation, purchase history and device. Comments closed on May 18, 2026 with 438 filed, and the Commission has not proposed a rule.

Does AI drive-thru ordering actually work?

It works at scale for some operators and stays a small pilot for others. Taco Bell runs voice AI on Omilia at more than 890 U.S. restaurants and Casey's runs SoundHound across more than 2,600 stores. McDonald's, by contrast, was testing a Google-powered system at five restaurants as of June 2026.

What is the difference between AI that is shipping and AI that is announced?

Shipping means the vendor's own primary source says restaurants can use it now. Announced means the vendor has published the product but has not stated general availability. On this page those are labeled separately, and a vendor with no verifiable primary source is listed as having no verified AI rather than being left off.

Can I order food through an AI assistant?

It depends which assistant, and the difference is whether you actually pay inside it. Grubhub says you can browse, build an order and complete checkout without leaving Amazon's Alexa+ on an Echo Show 8 or larger - that one finishes the job. Most of the others hand you back: Resy's connector for Claude finds U.S. restaurants and checks availability, then sends you to Resy to book, and DoorDash's and Uber Eats' assistants build a draft cart you confirm yourself.

Which restaurant AI tools answer the phone?

SoundHound, ConverseNow, Yelp Host and SevenRooms Voice AI all ship voice agents that answer restaurant phone calls, take orders or bookings, and pass them into the restaurant's own system. OpenTable does not build one itself but lists more than 20 voice AI partners that book directly into its reservation system.

Which fast food restaurants use AI in the drive-thru?

Taco Bell runs voice AI at more than 890 U.S. restaurants, the largest deployment documented here, and Casey's runs it across more than 2,600 stores. Bojangles runs it too. McDonald's was testing a Google-powered system at five restaurants as of June 2026.

How do I know if I'm talking to an AI when I call a restaurant?

Ask directly. No federal rule requires it — the FCC's AI-voice rules cover calls a business places, not the line it answers. Two states go further: Maine requires clear notice whenever a bot could mislead a reasonable caller into thinking it is a person, and Utah requires a business to answer honestly when asked. Plain-English summary as of August 2026, not legal advice.

Are food photos on delivery apps AI-generated?

Some are AI-altered. DoorDash labels those photos “AI-enhanced” and says the AI may re-plate the dish, replace the background, fill in missing parts of the image, or change the perspective, without changing the food, ingredients, or portion size.

Do customers actually like AI in restaurants?

Less than the industry assumes. 21.7% of consumers say they prefer dealing with an AI agent, while businesses deploying them believe 42.7% do. That gap is the most useful number on this page.

Is there AI that reduces food waste in restaurants?

Yes. Winnow Vision uses a camera and a connected scale above the bin to identify and weigh discarded food with no staff input and reports the cost back to the kitchen. Crunchtime and MarginEdge approach the same problem from forecasting and purchasing rather than from the bin.

Every claim has a source that was opened and read

Nothing is published from a URL that was not fetched. Vendor claims trace to the vendor's own documents; reported claims trace to the outlet that did the reporting. Which bar applies to which is spelled out below. Listicles, roundups and republished wire copy are not accepted as sources in either case.

The four labels mean specific things

Shipping means the primary source says restaurants can use it now. Announced means it has been published but general availability has not been stated. Changed means the product was acquired, discontinued, or its rollout was materially altered. No verified AI means no primary source could be found, which is reported rather than hidden.

Vendors with no AI are listed anyway

Leaving them off would make the market look more automated than it is. If a vendor ships something and it is missing here, that is a gap in this page, not a statement about the vendor.

No vendor claim here rests on a document older than January 2026

Every dated entry carries the publication date of the document behind it, and that date is 1 January 2026 or later. Where a claim could only be supported by a 2025 or older source, it was removed rather than left standing with an old citation. A handful of entries are undated on purpose - a vendor product page has no publication date, so those are dated to the day the page was opened and checked.

Two different sourcing bars, and it matters which one applies

The vendor directory above runs on one rule: a claim about what a product does must come from the vendor's own newsroom, release notes, help center, investor release, or a press release the company itself issued over a wire. Every entry in it meets that. An article written about an announcement does not count, however accurate it is.

The diner section below runs on a different bar, because it has to. When the claim is what a customer said, what a reporter watched happen, or what an executive answered when pressed, the journalism is the source - no company publishes a document saying its regulars find the drive-thru impersonal. Those entries name the outlet that did the work, and you should read them as reporting rather than as disclosure.

The line between the two: a company telling you about its own product needs the company's own document. A reporter telling you what they found needs the reporter. That distinction is why Grubhub's ChatGPT integration is missing from the directory - Grubhub never published anything about it, and a statement it gave to one trade publication is the company talking about its own product without a document behind it.

It is updated weekly

New entries and status changes are added every week. Dates on each source show how current that particular claim is.