AI phone answering and guest communication
Slang calls its product an “AI Superhost” for restaurants. It answers inbound calls, responds to common guest questions, and can manage restaurant reservations around the clock.
Restaurant AI Companies:The 2026 Market Map
40 companies building the AI layer for restaurants.
Restaurant AI has expanded well beyond chatbots and generic AI tools.
Companies are now using AI to answer restaurant phone calls, take drive-thru orders, forecast demand, schedule labor, analyze restaurant data, automate marketing, reduce food waste, improve guest recovery, and physically prepare or move food.
This is Lumitra’s map of the Restaurant AI market as of August 2026.
Toast’s restaurant AI research found that 81% of surveyed restaurant decision-makers expected to use more AI in the future. By the first quarter of 2026, Toast said restaurants at more than 125,000 locations had used its Toast IQ assistant.
- 40
- companies tracked
- 6
- market segments
- Voice AI & ordering14
- Operations, forecasting & workforce5
- Guest growth, marketing & restaurant data6
- Food waste & computer vision3
- Physical AI & robotics5
- Established platforms building major AI products7
Last updated August 2026
The map
Restaurant AI market map
Voice AI & ordering is currently the largest segment in our map, accounting for 14 of the 40 companies tracked.
14 companies
Voice AI & Restaurant Ordering
Restaurant voice AI has become one of the most crowded areas of Restaurant AI.
These companies use conversational AI to answer calls, take orders, handle reservations, answer menu questions, automate drive-thru ordering, and support restaurant employees.
Restaurant phone ordering
Kea focuses specifically on restaurant phone calls and ordering. Its voice AI handles calls, takes orders that can flow into restaurant systems, answers questions, and can hand conversations to restaurant staff when needed.
AI phone agent for restaurants
Loman provides restaurant phone automation for orders, reservations, questions, and other guest calls. Its restaurant-specific product connects voice conversations to operational systems rather than functioning as a generic receptionist.
Voice AI ordering
ConverseNow builds conversational ordering technology specifically for restaurants, spanning phone ordering, drive-thru, kiosks, and other ordering channels.
Drive-thru Voice AI
Hi Auto specializes in automated drive-thru ordering for quick-service restaurants. Its system handles guest conversations and ordering at the drive-thru rather than restaurant phone calls more generally.
Restaurant voice and conversational AI
SoundHound has built a substantial restaurant business around voice ordering. Its restaurant products cover phone ordering, drive-thru automation, and employee assistance. In 2026, the company also expanded restaurant deployments with brands including Casey's.
Restaurant phone and drive-thru AI
Vox AI develops restaurant-specific conversational AI for both phone and drive-thru interactions, including order taking and guest questions.
Enterprise restaurant AI agents
PolyAI brings its enterprise conversational AI platform into restaurants through AI hosts that can answer calls, handle guest requests, and connect with restaurant reservation and operating systems.
Enterprise drive-thru Voice AI
Presto is focused heavily on Voice AI for quick-service drive-thrus. The company entered 2026 centered on enterprise restaurant deployments and continued expanding its drive-thru product with chains including Dairy Queen.
Restaurant AI concierge
Hostie provides a restaurant-focused virtual host for calls and guest interactions, including reservations, takeout, events, questions, and other front-of-house communication.
Restaurant Voice AI
Maple automates restaurant phone calls and ordering with a product built specifically around restaurant guest communication.
AI restaurant host
Newo builds AI agents for restaurant guest conversations across phone and related channels. Its restaurant product can use restaurant information such as menus, hours, locations, and reviews to configure agents for individual businesses or multi-location groups.
Voice AI for restaurant groups
RestoHost provides restaurant-specific voice agents for calls, orders, reservations, and guest questions, with a particular emphasis on multi-location restaurant businesses.
AI ordering across phone, drive-thru and kiosk
VOICEplug uses Voice AI to automate restaurant phone ordering, drive-thru ordering, kiosk interactions, and reservations.
5 companies
Restaurant Operations, Forecasting & Workforce AI
A second group of Restaurant AI companies is focused less on guest conversations and more on what happens behind the restaurant.
These systems use restaurant sales, inventory, labor, and operational data to forecast demand, plan labor, identify problems, automate reporting, and help operators decide what to do next.
AI restaurant management
Nory positions itself as an AI restaurant management system spanning demand forecasting, labor, inventory, payroll, profitability, and restaurant operations. Its newer agentic AI model is designed to turn operational data into recommended actions.
Restaurant demand forecasting
ClearCOGS turns restaurant POS data into forecasts and recommendations for prep, ordering, and labor planning. The company is narrowly focused on restaurant demand forecasting rather than general business intelligence.
AI workforce management
Nesto develops AI-driven workforce planning for restaurants and hospitality businesses. Its platform forecasts restaurant demand and uses those forecasts to automate staffing and scheduling decisions.
Back-of-house restaurant operations
Restoke combines restaurant operations, food-cost management, staff workflows, supplier information, invoices, and automated analysis in a back-of-house platform.
AI for multi-unit restaurant data
Expo connects restaurant systems including POS, labor, inventory, and guest-feedback data, then lets multi-unit operators analyze that information through AI rather than manually pulling reports from separate systems.
6 companies
Restaurant Marketing, Guest Growth & Data AI
Another part of the Restaurant AI market is forming around the guest.
These companies use AI across restaurant marketing, customer data, loyalty, reviews, guest recovery, online discovery, personalization, and first-party ordering.
Restaurant guest experience and local marketing
Momos works with multi-location restaurant and hospitality brands across guest experience, customer service, local marketing, and AI-powered insights and automation.
AI restaurant growth engine
Dishio combines guest data, marketing execution, reporting, and AI-generated marketing assets for restaurants. The company emerged publicly in 2026 after developing its product from experience operating restaurant marketing agency Dineline.
AI discovery and ordering
Saivory is focused on the changing path between restaurant discovery and ordering. Its platform helps restaurants surface in AI-driven search experiences and connects that discovery to direct ordering and localized restaurant pages.
AI-native restaurant marketing
Hang describes itself as an autonomous, AI-native marketing system. Its platform combines customer data, loyalty, offers, campaigns, and personalization.
AI-first guest experience
Ovation focuses on restaurant guest feedback, guest recovery, reviews, operational insights, and marketing. Its AI analyzes open-text feedback and helps restaurant teams understand and respond to guest issues.
Restaurant guest intelligence and AI marketing
Bloom unifies restaurant guest data from systems such as POS, Wi-Fi, ordering, reservations, and reviews, then applies AI across marketing, reputation, operational signals, and AI-search visibility.
3 companies
Food Waste & Computer Vision AI
Some of the clearest physical uses of restaurant AI are happening around food waste.
These systems combine cameras, scales, computer vision, and machine learning to identify what kitchens are discarding and turn that information into operational recommendations.
AI food-waste tracking
Winnow combines a camera and connected scale to automatically identify and weigh food being discarded in commercial kitchens. Its system converts that information into reports restaurants and other foodservice operators can use to change purchasing, preparation, menus, and portions.
Computer vision for kitchen food waste
Orbisk automatically captures and identifies discarded food in professional kitchens, then uses the resulting data and AI-driven recommendations to help operators understand and reduce waste.
AI food operations and waste intelligence
Metafoodx uses AI scanning to track food from production through disposal at the menu-item level, providing kitchens with data around production, consumption, and food waste.
5 companies
Restaurant Robotics & Physical AI
Restaurant AI is also moving into the physical environment.
Rather than only analyzing restaurant data, these companies are using AI and robotics to cook food, move dishes, prepare beverages, or automate repetitive kitchen and fulfillment tasks.
AI kitchen automation
Miso Robotics develops AI-powered kitchen automation, best known for its Flippy platform for automated frying and other commercial kitchen tasks.
AI cooking robots
Aniai develops robotic cooking equipment for quick-service restaurants and commercial kitchens, including its Alpha Grill automated burger-cooking platform.
AI restaurant service robots
Bear Robotics develops autonomous robots for hospitality and restaurant environments, including its Servi line for moving food and other items through restaurant dining rooms.
AI service and foodservice robotics
Richtech builds AI-driven service robots including robotic beverage, foodservice, delivery, and hospitality systems. Its restaurant-facing products include ADAM and Scorpion.
AI takeout packing robotics
AtomBite.AI launched in 2026 around flexible-manipulation robotics for restaurants. Its first commercial product, the M1, is designed to automate the final packing and verification step for restaurant takeout orders.
7 companies
Established Restaurant Platforms Making AI a Core Product
Not every important Restaurant AI company started as an AI company.
Several of the restaurant industry's largest and most established software platforms are now putting AI directly into products already used by restaurant operators.
We track these separately from AI-first companies because they enter the market with existing restaurant data, integrations, customers, and distribution.
AI inside the Toast restaurant platform
Toast IQ is Toast's AI-powered restaurant intelligence product. It can analyze restaurant performance data, surface recommendations, answer questions, and increasingly take actions inside the broader Toast platform. Toast reported that more than 125,000 restaurant locations used the Toast IQ assistant during the first quarter of 2026.
AI across restaurant guest and digital operations
Olo has been adding AI across its restaurant platform, including personalization, operational workflows, and AI-powered tools intended to help restaurants manage digital guest experiences and restaurant data. Its Summer 2026 product release was explicitly positioned around “AI that works for restaurant operators.”
AI agents for restaurant operations
Deliverect has expanded from digital-order management into AI agents designed specifically for restaurant operations. Its AI products can work across menu optimization, promotions, order issues, restaurant data, and operational workflows.
AI-powered restaurant operations management
Crunchtime uses AI across restaurant inventory, labor and scheduling, operational intelligence, and multi-location restaurant management. The company positions its current suite as an AI-powered restaurant operations platform.
AI restaurant growth platform
Owner.com increasingly positions its restaurant platform around AI, spanning restaurant websites, SEO and discovery, direct ordering, marketing, and phone automation. Its current homepage describes Owner as an AI platform for helping restaurants grow online.
AI for restaurant customer data
Bikky is a restaurant customer data platform whose Data Assistant lets operators query and work with their restaurant data using AI. The company describes the product as AI built specifically for the restaurant industry.
AI-ready restaurant digital presence
Marqii works across restaurant listings, reviews, local pages, search visibility, and digital hospitality. Its newer AI products include AI-ready location pages and an MCP connection that lets restaurant operators work with live Marqii data through AI assistants.
What we see in the data
What the Restaurant AI market looks like in 2026.
A few patterns stand out from the companies in this market map.
Voice AI is the most crowded category
14 of the 40 companies we currently track are primarily involved in restaurant voice, ordering, or conversational AI.
That includes specialized phone agents such as Slang, Kea, Loman, Hostie and Maple, enterprise conversational platforms such as SoundHound and PolyAI, and drive-thru specialists such as Hi Auto and Presto.
Restaurant Voice AI is already becoming a market of its own.
AI is moving from point solutions into restaurant operations
Nory, ClearCOGS, Expo, Nesto and Restoke represent a different direction.
Instead of automating one guest interaction, these platforms work with restaurant operational data to forecast demand, plan staffing, identify issues, manage costs, or help operators make decisions.
At the same time, incumbents including Toast, Crunchtime and Deliverect are putting AI directly into broader restaurant operating platforms.
Restaurant discovery is becoming an AI problem
Saivory, Bloom, Owner.com and Marqii are all addressing some version of the same emerging change: consumers increasingly discover businesses through AI-driven search and recommendation systems, not only traditional search results.
That is beginning to create a new Restaurant AI category around AI visibility, structured restaurant information, local discovery, and generative engine optimization.
Physical AI is still its own market
Miso, Aniai, Bear Robotics, Richtech and AtomBite are solving a fundamentally different problem from restaurant software companies.
Their AI has to work in a physical restaurant environment, handling food, equipment, movement, guests, or fulfillment rather than only information.
Where this industry gathers
The networks, podcasts and shows behind these companies.
Almost every company on this map turns up in at least one of these. If you sell into Restaurant AI and have not heard of them, you are not in the room where your buyers are.
Restaurant Technology Network
Suppliers and operators develop industry guidance together; active call for speakers and supplier workgroups.
IFBTA
Food and beverage technology suppliers, operators and consultants; runs the Accelerate podcast.
Restaurant Technology Guys
Weekly multi-unit restaurant technology podcast; accepts industry guests.
MURTEC
Restaurant technology conference where operators and suppliers meet; held in Las Vegas.
FS/TEC
The other major restaurant technology conference, with a heavier emerging-vendor presence.
Built for restaurants, not adapted for them.
A company is on this map when AI is central to what it sells and restaurants are who it sells to. That rules out general chatbot builders, generic voice APIs with no restaurant offering, and consumer dining apps — all of which surface in a search for “restaurant AI” and none of which compete for the same buyer.
Established platforms adding AI are kept separate from AI-first companies, because an incumbent bolting an assistant onto an existing product is not the same kind of business as a startup selling its first hundred locations. It is a map, not a ranking.
Building restaurant AI we missed?
Contact LumitraRestaurant AI is part of a much bigger market
AI companies are only one part of the ecosystem of businesses selling into restaurants.
Together, they make up Restaurant B2B.
Explore Restaurant B2B- Restaurant technology
- POS, payments, ordering, loyalty, reservations, scheduling, inventory, and back-office systems.
- Foodservice
- Ingredients and distribution.
- Equipment
- Selling and servicing the commercial kitchen.
- Facilities
- Keeping restaurant locations operating.
- Marketing
- Helping restaurants attract and retain guests.
- Workforce
- Staffing, payroll, scheduling, recruiting, and training.
Selling into restaurants is different
A restaurant concept is not necessarily the company operating it.
Restaurant AI companies still face the same underlying market problem as thousands of other Restaurant B2B companies. One operator may control multiple concepts. A franchise brand may have hundreds of separate franchisees. Individual locations can have different technologies, owners, contacts, and buying authority.
And the account in a CRM often does not cleanly correspond to the restaurant a salesperson sees in the real world.
Lumitra helps companies selling into restaurants find the right accounts, research the companies and operators behind them, identify relevant people, understand existing relationships, and turn restaurant signals into GTM actions.
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