How Restaurant Operators Feel About Using AI to Help Their Business

Toast’s Voice of the Restaurant Industry Survey outlines the current state of the restaurant industry and how they’re feeling about 2025.

The Restaurant Industry Proved Again to be Resilient in Times of Change

From tackling the effects of inflation to finding new ways to delight their guests, restaurants have proved resilient and creative when faced with new challenges. For the third year, Toast is releasing its Voice of the Restaurant Industry Survey to outline how restaurants respond to macroeconomic challenges, highlight changes in pain points, and check in on how operators feel about the future.

From May 17, 2024 through June 2, 2024, Toast polled 755 restaurant decision-makers in the United States. Survey respondents consist of restaurants with 16 or fewer locations and include a representative market mix of quick-service restaurants (QSRs) and full-service restaurants (FSRs). While some Toast customers are included in this survey, it is a broad view of independent restaurants. This is a blind survey, meaning respondents did not know that Toast was fielding the study. Insights from this survey are directional and should not be interpreted as precise.

The good news is that, overall, operators feel good about the state of the restaurant industry and are optimistic about the future. While challenges persist, some pain points from the past few years have eased. 

Approximately 63% of restaurant operators surveyed who manage finances said that their profits in 2024 increased compared to last year1, which is great news for the industry. Only 4% of respondents said their profits decreased compared to last year, and 33% said their profits stayed the same.2

Last year, surveyed operators' top pain points were inflation, guest throughput, hiring employees, marketing, and guest foot traffic.

This year, a higher percentage of respondents say analyzing and managing the cost of goods and services and supplier and vendor management are top pain points compared to last year. Inflation (or the increased costs of goods and services) is still a top pain point for operators.

Some good news: A lower percentage of operators surveyed found sourcing and hiring a top pain point in 2024, dropping three percentage points.

So, what did restaurants do this year in response to inflation? Operators we surveyed said they adjusted food suppliers (37%), tracked ingredient prices (36%), increased menu prices (34%), managed a leaner inventory (32%), and reduced their menu sizes (26%). 

While guests may still be feeling the pain of rising menu prices at restaurants, fewer restaurant respondents said that they raised prices this year compared to last year. 

A Positive Outlook for the Future of the Restaurant Industry

More good news is that restaurant operators surveyed are feeling similarly confident about opening a new location within the next six to 12 months. 24% of respondents said they hope to open a location within six months, up two percentage points from last year. 28% of respondents said they hope to open a location in the next 12 months, which is similar to what we saw in our 2023 survey. 

When asked what goals operators have for their business over the next year, improving profitability was again the top answer, followed by increasing the number of ways operators can serve guests and generate more revenue.

As far as technology goes, 26% of respondents said they’d like to start using new tech to help run their business, which is up seven percentage points from last year. 

As restaurants look to the next 12 months, they anticipate placing a greater emphasis on revenue streams such as on-premise dining, off-premise dining, and catering.

Operators surveyed are also looking for ways to improve their business through using artificial intelligence (AI), which rose by seven percentage points from last year. 

So, what do operators think about using AI to help their business? Respondents said they hope to implement AI in several ways, including optimizing menu performance, making recommendations for guests, benchmarking their business performance against their peers, optimizing pricing, and analyzing their business performance. 

Data is only powerful if it's personal. Toast Benchmarking shows your performance compared to similar concepts in your area- so you can spot trends, keep an eye on the local competition, and get ahead.

Despite dynamic pricing being a hot topic this year, 70% of respondents said they are very or extremely interested in implementing it in their restaurants. Pricing changes and how “dynamic pricing” is defined can vary — from a happy hour for discounted drinks during typically slow periods,  to full-scale menu changes that discount when demand is slower. Dynamic Pricing was defined in the survey as raising prices during times of high demand/foot traffic and lowering prices during times of slow demand/foot traffic.

It’s unclear how many restaurants will implement dynamic pricing that results in higher prices at certain hours, which could hurt their relationship with their guests and turn them off from the restaurant altogether. Currently, only 7% of restaurant operators surveyed said they offered some form of dynamic pricing, including lower-priced items for lunch vs. dinner and promotions like discounted drinks for happy hour.