Canadian restaurateurs are increasingly optimistic about the future of their business and are looking to embrace artificial intelligence in day-to-day tasks, according to the results of a new survey.

Financial services firm Square’s annual “Future of Commerce” report, released Wednesday, found 80 per cent of Canadian restauranteurs are feeling more optimistic about their business than they were a year ago, and 100 per cent are looking to expand their menu offerings in 2024.

Ming-Tai Huh, head of restaurants at Square, has first-hand experience the growing sense of optimism and experimentation as a partner of Boston-based Cambridge Street Hospitality Group.

“Restaurants moving out of COVID and the pandemic really have to find new ways to engage with their guests and that involves probably selling them different products,” he said during a media availability ahead of the report’s release.

“Something that we see is some caution about inflation as it may impact consumer spending, consumer dining trends. With that said, we still see optimism towards the future.”


AI uses for restaurants

With costs climbing and restaurants often short-staffed, many Canadian restaurants are looking at AI to fill the gaps.

The survey found 100 per cent of responding Canadian restauranteurs believe AI can help with their staffing challenges, including the use of food prep robots, voice ordering technology and predictive ordering.  

Huh doesn’t expect the restaurant experience will change drastically as establishments incorporate AI.

“For the average restaurant and the average small business, we're going to see incorporation of AI and automation at a small level … in helping restaurants effectively be more efficient and automated in some ways where you can take repetitive tasks and ultimately make them better,” he said.

“I really like to see that because there's so many things that these restaurants have to do on a daily basis and some things you just can't get to and now all of a sudden those things can happen very quickly.”

Customers also appear open to AI use in restaurants, as 60 per cent of surveyed consumers said they are supportive of AI-based tools and 76 per cent would prefer to place an order on a screen instead of a person.

Ara Kharazian, research and data lead at Square, said that even though restaurants tend to be a personal experience, consumers aren’t too worried about losing some human interaction.

“We found in our survey that consumers are generally open to a creative and effective use of AI and technology if it's going to improve the restaurant experience,” he said during the media event.

“These consumers are also the same people who saw how hard it was to go to a restaurant and enjoy the experience in a period of significant labour shortages.”

Huh envisioned a scenario where AI could improve the customer experience, especially when visiting a new restaurant.

“I like wine and when I go to a new restaurant, I'm maybe a wine nerd and I kind of know a lot, but not everybody has that skill and that that training,” he said.

“It'd be wonderful for a restaurant to be able to provide you with this recommendation based on your taste or needs.”

Methodology:

The Square Future of Commerce Retail and Restaurant Surveys were conducted by Wakefield Research among 2,000 retail owners & managers and 2,000 restaurant owners and managers, with quotas set within each survey for 500 respondents per market in the U.S., Canada, U.K. and Australia, between 27 October and 8 November 2023, using an email invitation and an online survey.

Results of any sample are subject to sampling variation. The magnitude of the variation is measurable and is affected by the number of interviews and the level of the percentages expressing the results. For the interviews conducted in this particular study, the chances are 95 in 100 that a survey result does not vary, plus or minus, by more than 2.2 percentage points for the Retail and Restaurant Surveys and by more than 1.6 percentage points for the Consumers Survey from the result than would be obtained if interviews had been conducted with all persons in the universe represented by the sample.