The Rise of Restaurant AI Data Intelligence Platforms with Eric Lehto of OpSage

Restaurant operators are sitting on more data than ever — and more confused about what to do with it than ever. In this episode of Modern Solutions for Modern Restaurants, Paul Molinari sits down with Eric Lehto, CEO of OpSage by CONVX, to cut through the noise around AI in restaurants and get honest about what it actually takes to make it work. Eric has spent years inside the data strategy conversations that multi-unit operators rarely share publicly — the ones where a single brand has 10 or 12 disconnected systems, two different POS platforms that don't talk to each other, soft drink flavors that only exist in inventory, and franchisee P&L reports arriving as manual spreadsheets. The data problem, he explains, is bigger and more expensive than most operators realize — and almost impossible to solve with legacy BI tools or general-purpose AI alone. 00:00 AI Promise vs Reality 01:33 Operator Data Chaos Story 06:10 Why Restaurant Data Is Hard 07:50 AI for Cleaning Data 08:28 Restaurant AI Needs Context 11:16 Why POS Cannot Solve It 12:39 Building AI Ready Data 15:22 Security and Zero Trust 20:53 Integration Expectations 24:46 Why Not Just ChatGPT 28:00 Monday Morning With AI 31:28 Ask Your Restaurant Anything 33:28 Final Advice and Wrap Up Episode links: OpSage: https://opsage.com Eric Lehto: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elehto/