There is no shortage of headlines predicting how AI will change the world. Where AI in small hospitality and food businesses is concerned, the reality is not so dramatic.
The impact of AI on these sectors seems to be mostly positive, particularly in the areas that sit outside the dining room and kitchen.
Last year I wrote a piece about the pros and cons of a predominantly AI focused business marketing and social media strategy.
Since then, AI has continued to dominate the headlines as it encroaches into every aspect of our lives.
This will be a topic I will continue to return to I suspect.
Is AI a Good or Bad Thing?
That depends on who you talk to and where you work.
While many advocates from the big business community are extolling the virtues of AI for improving productivity and efficiency, others are keen to point out the effect on jobs, society and the potential threat to human existence.
Some say that AI will have positive effects from the perspective of driving young people out of routine office jobs into blue collar professions which Australia desperately needs.
The jobs most at risk of being replaced or at the very least disrupted, are those that are clerical and repetitive in nature (think data entry, call centre, finance and accounting).
Occupations where employment is predicted to increase includes blue collar trades and hospitality workers.
Modelling is showing that in the future, we will adapt and that there will still be jobs. They will just be different.
For the small business owners I work with – many of whom are in the food and hospitality sectors, this is good news. When we look beyond the hype, the reality looks far less dramatic.
How AI Might Impact Small Hospitality & Food Businesses
Every week there’s a new tool, a new headline and a new prediction about how our work and personal lives are going to be transformed.
Because AI can’t cook a burger (yet) or make a conti roll, its biggest use in small hospitality and food-based businesses is behind-the-scenes tasks.
AI is good at handling tasks like drafting menus, basic marketing and social media jobs and staff administration functions like rostering.
For owners and managers, this means less time on admin and more time focused on staff and customers which is want most want to do.
Where AI Falls Short
Until the time that sentient robots arrive on the scene (was the Terminator a documentary?), AI is not capable of providing front of house hospitality or service.
Unlike humans, AI can’t welcome clients in a physical sense and build genuine relationships and rapport. It can’t read a room or sense a mood.
Overuse of AI behind the scenes also poses risks for business authenticity because of the now ubiquitous nature of AI. It’s already easy to spot AI copy and captions which tend to be written in a bland and robotic way.
In hospitality, your personality is your brand. Look no further than my long-time clients Burger Freak or Fussy Meats for examples of outstanding and unique business personalities.
From a marketing perspective, one thing has always been true – authenticity matters. This is especially true for younger audiences today who don’t trust the formulaic one directional marketing campaigns of the past.
AI might be advancing quickly, but so are the skills of users and audiences. People can increasingly tell when content feels overly automated or impersonal or is just plain fake.
And of course AI won’t fix any underlying operational issues. If a food or hospitality business is struggling, AI won’t rescue it if it doesn’t already have good fundamentals in place.
AI Hasn’t Changed Marketing Fundamentals
Social media is one of the clearest examples of where AI helps but where the limits are obvious.
AI is good to help with automating tasks like generating content ideas as well as drafting captions and repurposing posts across platforms with more consistency.
But AI hasn’t changed the fundamentals of why people follow brands.
People don’t follow accounts because of how often they post. They follow because the content feels authentic, has a personality and is worth paying attention to.
The risk isn’t that AI will replace small business voices, it’s that businesses will overuse it and people will tune out.
The Changing SEO Landscape
For those small business with a website, they will know that AI has rapidly changed the SEO playing field.
Rather than the old days (old days being only months ago) of people using search engines to find content, people have shifted to using AI tools.
AI tools are scanning the internet looking for rich, original, human generated content rather than things like H1 headings and key phrases.
While AI makes it easier than ever to produce large volumes of content, it also means the internet is now flooded with material that looks fine but says very little that is original.
AI can’t provide original insight and it makes weak, duplicated content more obvious.
The Playing Field Has Shifted
One of the most positive impacts of AI for small business is the ability to access tools and services once only the domain of bigger companies with larger marketing budgets.
AI has narrowed the gap between those with resources and those who want to create polished content without heavy investment.
But AI tools don’t replace effective strategy. Only the manager or owner truly knows their business, their sector and their customers.
In sectors like food and hospitality, these human elements matter. As automation increases, authenticity and the human-factor will become an ever-increasing valuable commodity.
Humans Still Have a Place
Circling back to the original premise of this post, I think AI is still a “wait and see” more generally.
I don’t think it’s going to negatively affect the food and hospitality clients I deal with. It will probably be more of a help when it’s used as an operational support tool rather than as something to drive business strategy or decisions.
At the end of the day, food and hospitality are human businesses. For now, humans still very much have a place.
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