The most popular technology tool on display at the 2024 National Restaurant Association Show in Chicago was mostly invisible. What do the robotic arms, POS systems, back of house analytics tools, and more booth gadgets have in common? Most of them are powered by and supported by data. Data — whether it’s collected by machine learning or AI — has proven to be the universal currency of restaurant technology in 2024 and beyond.
Operators are waking up to the significance of data collection and optimization in operational decision-making, from employee scheduling and inventory management, to marketing data about customers. This was especially evident at the Restaurant Show, where almost every booth at the tech pavilion went into detail about the data their software (and sometimes hardware) provides.
As more and more tech vendors begin to utilize data reports in new and insightful ways, it’s crucial for designers to create accessible UX interfaces that can be easily accessible by a busy store manager on the go.
