If you attend restaurant conferences or tune in to restaurant earnings calls, you might assume that every restaurant on earth is investing in artificial intelligence.
And it’s true that most of the biggest chains are doing that. But for the broader restaurant universe, the reality is more mixed. Not every operator is sold on the promise of AI. Many are interested but have not yet taken the leap, while others remain more cautious, according to the 2025 Restaurant Technology Outlook Report published last month by Restaurant Business and Nation’s Restaurant News.
The survey of 557 restaurants of all sizes found that 21% of them are using AI today, 51% are interested in using it at some point, and 28% aren’t using it and aren’t interested.
Put more plainly, most restaurants are actually not using AI today. At least not consciously: As the study points out, AI is baked into so much software now that restaurants may be using it without knowing.
And what these restaurants have to say about the technology is notable. It paints a picture of where restaurant AI might be heading and where it is falling short.
Currently, most restaurants are using AI to create marketing materials and social media posts. This is the most common use case by a wide margin, the report found. This is not surprising. Generative AI programs like ChatGPT are widely available and easy to use. Copywriting is low-hanging fruit, especially for smaller operations that don’t have dedicated marketing departments.
However, for operators who are interested in using AI in the future, copywriting is a much lower priority. They are focused on pointing AI at more ambitious tasks, like inventory management (51%), labor management (47%) and forecasting traffic and sales (45%). Just 27% would consider using it to write marketing copy, the study found.
These future use cases have the potential for significant business impacts. More accurate inventory or forecasting could help restaurants reduce waste and lower costs, for instance. And they could make managers’ jobs easier by automating time-consuming manual tasks.
But these systems are also complicated to implement. A restaurant’s data needs to be organized and structured to train the AI and get meaningful results. And employees need to learn how to use and trust the technology.
That may explain why most restaurants are intrigued by AI, but haven’t adopted it yet.
That said, more restaurants are taking a look at the technology. The same study last year found that just 35% of respondents were interested, which was down from 41% the year before. The fluctuation suggests that restaurants are still learning exactly how AI might fit into their business.
But there is still a segment of the industry that either doesn’t trust AI or doesn’t see how it applies to their operations. The size of this group has stayed the same at about 28% of all respondents for the past three years, according to the report.
Among this group, 27% said they’re waiting for others to prove or disprove that AI can work. This was the No. 1 reason given for abstaining. And it underscores a real issue with AI right now: While many large restaurant chains are using AI, relatively few have provided solid evidence of its impact, at least publicly. Until they start sharing real results, there will always be some holdouts who want some assurance before they dive in themselves.
Also, 19% said they thought AI was overhyped, 19% said it doesn’t have understandable use cases, and 15% said it doesn’t have a clear ROI.
And there was also a subset (19%) that said AI has no place in the hospitality business—even, apparently, in the back-of-house, where it would be invisible to customers.
Notably, things like cost and complexity were not major deterrents. Just 9% said they thought AI tools were too expensive, and 4% said they’re too complex to implement.
But the second most common factor suggests there’s another reason some restaurants aren’t adopting AI: They simply don’t know enough about it. Nearly a quarter (24%) responded “I’m not sure” when asked why they aren’t using AI yet.
Taken together, these responses suggest that there is still a lot of uncertainty about AI. This is natural for any new technology, especially one as fast-moving and, frankly, intimidating as AI.
Some tech suppliers are already responding to this by downplaying the AI in their products and focusing on what the technology actually does.
“Last year, everyone was kind of leading with AI,” said Bryan Solar, chief product officer for SpotOn, at the National Restaurant Association Show last month. “People are now talking about the benefits. And I think the delta there is, last year it was mostly smoke.”
If those benefits are real, it won’t be long before more restaurants start coming aboard the AI train.