Will you soon be ordering takeout food via AI? Starbucks and Little Caesars launch apps on ChatGPT.

By Charles Passy

AI 'is the sizzle in the restaurant world,' industry reps say

While some challenges remain with AI platforms and restaurant ordering, most experts say these platforms will play an increasingly important role in the dining world.

Imagine ordering your next slice of pizza or cup of coffee through an artificial-intelligence chatbot like Gemini, Claude or ChatGPT.

That may be the direction that the restaurant world is heading. Recently, both Starbucks (SBUX) and Little Caesars - the biggest coffee chain and the third-biggest pizza chain, respectively, in terms of number of U.S. locations - announced they were launching apps on OpenAI's ChatGPT platform to help customers place orders.

In a statement, Little Caesars Chief Marketing Officer Greg Hamilton said this is part of the evolution of how business is being done, with consumers turning to AI platforms "as part of how they search for everything, including where to get their next meal."

Starbucks Senior Vice President Paul Riedel voiced similar thoughts in relation to his company's app, which is in beta form at this stage. In a statement, he said Starbucks wants to "make it easier than ever to find a drink that fits."

To be clear, both the Little Caesars and Starbucks ChatGPT apps won't let customers place an actual order yet; the apps will connect them with the companies' own platforms to complete the transaction. In Starbucks's case, Riedel said the app is there as a tool for exploration, helping customers match a beverage to fit "their mood or vibe of the day."

(In MarketWatch's own test, that led the app to recommend an iced matcha latte made with coconut milk and half the normal amount of syrup, when asked to suggest a good afternoon drink.)

'This is the sizzle in the restaurant world.' Stephen Zagor, a restaurant-industry consultant who teaches at Columbia Business School

But even if these are exploratory steps into the AI landscape, most restaurant- and tech-industry analysts and experts make it clear that this is the future of the dining business - and they fully expect more chains and individual establishments to hop on the AI bandwagon. They also anticipate a day when the entire dining transaction, all the way through to payment, will stay on an AI platform such as ChatGPT.

In short, the technology can't be ignored.

"This is the sizzle in the restaurant world," said Stephen Zagor, a veteran restaurant-industry consultant who teaches at Columbia Business School.

Oli Ostertag, president of growth platforms and AI at PAR Technology, a company that works with restaurants, agrees. "Every major multiunit brand will eventually need a presence inside AI platforms," he said.

To a great extent, the restaurant world is in line with the retail world, which has also been busily exploring ways to connect with consumers via AI. But there have been some stumbling blocks: Most notably, OpenAI had to back away from a checkout feature that allowed purchasing through ChatGPT - apparently, the feature failed to work all the time.

OpenAI didn't respond to a MarketWatch request for comment.

Harshita Rawat, a senior analyst with Bernstein, points to the challenges involved with checkout and AI platforms. For example, what if a customer has a gift card they want to use? "There's a lot of complexity around payments," she said.

Others note that payments involve all sorts of security and encryption issues, lest someone's financial information become exposed on an AI platform.

There's also the question of whether restaurant operators will even want to let an AI platform be equipped to handle payments, since dining establishments and payment providers like to mine that data themselves to better understand customer purchasing habits.

But most experts and analysts think these technical and other issues will be resolved sooner or later - and probably sooner. They note that many customers would prefer a one-step process for the sake of ease, keeping not only their what-should-we-have-for-dinner decisions but also their payments on a single platform. And an AI platform may be their desired option, given how the technology is rapidly finding its way into the mainstream.

"The customer is going to tell you they need this, or they're not going to come," Zagor said.

Of course, diners already have powerful platforms of another kind to help them - namely, ordering and delivery apps such as Grubhub and DoorDash (DASH). But don't be surprised if those apps look to AI platforms as well.

In fact, DoorDash already rolled out an app on ChatGPT to assist with grocery shopping. At the time of the launch, DoorDash co-founder Andy Fang said "our focus is on building AI tools that give people time back and make local shopping easier."

As for Grubhub, the company hinted at possible developments when it comes to AI. "We are actively exploring new partnerships in this space and look forward to sharing more details soon," a company spokesperson said.

-Charles Passy

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04-27-26 1135ET

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