How AI is disrupting the restaurant experience | Ep. 28

Spotify and Netflix both know what you like. The one place that exists for your literal taste, the restaurant, hands every guest the same printed card.ㅤDaniel Kazani sits down with Amir Khoshbakht, co-founder and CTO of Lokalia, to talk through what happens when AI moves out of the dashboard and into the dinner table.ㅤAmir's team is rebuilding the restaurant menu as a personalized surface. Items sort themselves to each guest based on prior orders and cross-venue preferences. An in-menu AI assistant answers questions in any language. A new agent on the manager side predicts which ingredients to push or pull back this week.ㅤEarly data from Lokalia's customers: 15 to 20% more engagement with menu items, and bigger checks per guest. The conversation also covers why most restaurant owners almost hate AI on first pitch, and where AI actually earns its keep when it leaves the dashboard.ㅤ👤 Guest BioAmir Khoshbakht is co-founder and CTO of Lokalia. He spent over a decade in software engineering, with prior full-stack and blockchain work at Soar Robotics and a co-founder role at Aikido. He started Lokalia after deciding AI should move out of dashboards and into the parts of daily life people physically experience, beginning with restaurants and cafes.ㅤ📌 What We CoverWhy every restaurant menu is the last static surface in your customer experienceHow Lokalia's AI Waiter inside the menu changes the order flowThe 15 to 20% lift in engagement when the menu sorts itself around each guestCross-venue preference matching: liking the chocolate cake at restaurant A changes what restaurant B shows you firstWhat the data shows about why low-selling items actually sell low (rarely about quality)"The Expert," Lokalia's new agent that predicts ingredient demand for the kitchenWhy most restaurant owners almost hate AI when you walk in pitching itWhere Amir sees hospitality landing: an operating system with fewer tools, not moreㅤ🔗 Resources MentionedLokaliaAmir Khoshbakht on LinkedInSpotifyNetflix