Back-office labor: how one restaurant chain put its own AI agent to work
Restaurant Business reports that 86-unit fast-casual chain Pokeworks spent 2025 consolidating data from its systems into one central database, then built an AI agent, Pokebot, early this year. Staff ask it for reports, including whether restaurants are using labor efficiently based on sales; it now handles tasks such as accounting, and the people who did that work were reassigned, including to checking its output. Company-store employees use a phone app that builds a prioritized daily task list. The founders say automated sourcing and labor forecasting are saving percentage points on food and labor costs but gave no figures, and they don't plan to add headquarters staff (about 40 people) as the chain grows.
Original source: Restaurant Business ↗