4 Ways Biometric Data Will TRANSFORM The Restaurant Industry
Biometric data is on track to become an $82.9 billion industry by 2027. We currently see companies using thermal, fingerprint and iris scanning alongside face id, voice prints, and palm or even finger pattern recognition. Let’s discuss how these emerging technologies might impact the restaurant industry.
1. Face ID will radically alter the payment process and enhance the end-of-dinner experience
You’ve just had a fun time hanging out with your loved ones at dinner. The food was great, the conversation was better. You’re in a good mood. You’re ready to get out of town, so you look for your server.. but he’s nowhere to be found. After a few minutes, you’re able to flag him down and ask for the check. He goes to his POS system and prints everything out. Then he brings it over to you and leaves. You get your card out and place it on the tray. He grabs it, handles the payment, brings it back to you, and you tip. Sound familiar?
It’s the worst part of the dining experience. Not because you’re paying, but because there’s so much friction. It can take 10 minutes to leave a restaurant! With Facial recognition that’s all going to change. Customers are connecting their banking information to their Face ID, so they’ll be able to automatically sign-in and instantly pay without a servers help! Mastercard is leading the charge on this front, with their new Biometric Checkout System, which you can read more about here.
2. Palm print scanners will integrate with Loyalty Programs and Recommendation Engines
At the same time that Face ID is being introduced for payment authentication, we’re seeing companies like Amazon use Palm Print technology for account access. If integrated into the food & beverage industries, it could connect guests with their loyalty programs, pull order history, and even recommend food items on digital menus. This could quickly evolve into taste profiles, food exploration, and ultimately palate expansionism.
I am now spitballing, but go with me here:
With a labor shortage in the restaurant industry of over 700,000 jobs.. restaurants are turning to automation to meet consumer demand. This includes robot servers, AI operated drive thru’s, and even hosts. Elon Musk, who is launching his own humanoid robot this year, said he believes that in the near future robots will develop personalities and even become friends with people.
Extrapolating current trajectories out 5–10 years I could envision a world in which you’re a regular at a restaurant that has some form of automation. You sign-in with your palm print, and a robot pulls your personality profile, order history, favorite seating area, and dietary information (think restrictions like food allergies) before crafting the restaurant atmosphere and digital menu to your needs. Its personality may change depending on who it’s serving. Incorporate sentiment analysis and boom, you have VIP level customer service.
If you want to get really futuristic, there could be fleets of robots operating on a shared neural net, aggregating data, learning, and improving 24, 7, 365. This is exactly how Tesla’s self driving software improves:
We can stick to human workers of course, but palm print login is the starting point, through which all of these options become possible.
3. Conversational Agents will use voice prints to automate voice-based ordering in any language
When McDonald’s acquired the AI voice assistant company Apprente, they had the drive thru, kiosk, and mobile ordering in mind. The company conducts real-time analysis of voiceprints so that it can identify customers, interpret orders, and provide a tailored experience to guests. Here’s a quick excerpt from this article:
McDonald’s AI voice assistant goes beyond real-time voiceprint analysis and recognition and also incorporates ‘machine-learning routines’ that utilize voice recognition in combination with license plate scanning technology to identify unique customers regardless of which location they visit and present them with certain menu items based on their past visits
McDonald’s is not alone. Starbucks has been working on their voice recognition software since 2017, and recently said that 90% of the new stores they open will have drive thru’s. I’m reading in between the lines here 😉 but I think voice prints are probably involved. In 2019, McDonald’s began experimenting around with robot fryers. I predict in the near future we’ll see see voice recognition software connecting to autonomous systems — think drink makers, burger flipping robots, etc.
4. Fingerprint scans will make the workplace more secure, remove ordering friction, and potentially change the way servers do their jobs
Companies like KFC, Taco Bell, and Pizza Hut are using fingerprint-activated time clocks to let their employees clock in and out of shifts. This prevents timecard fraud and saves each restaurant money. It’s quick and easy so it will also put an end to buddy-punching (using your coworkers credentials to input orders into the POS) — a common practice during peak hours in the server world. Additionally, this will make loss prevention less prevalent and decrease restaurant LP investigation times. If a fingerprint is used to authorize a transaction, you know who processed it.
That’s not all though! Fingerprint scanning will also improve the alcohol-ordering experience, delivering frictionless age-verification — you’ll no longer need to show your ID to order that glass of wine at dinner.
Wait. There’s More.
Biometric food profiles will unlock a new world of ingredient traceability and quality management. If another pandemic hits, thermal scans may be used to keep restaurants open while ensuring guest safety, and these technological advances will spur on even more exciting technologies. If you read this far I just want to say thank you. I hope you found this article insightful — it’s an exciting time to be in the food business!
