AI isn\u2019t just a hyped innovation in the tech sector; the food industry is also investing heavily in the red-hot trend.<\/p>\n
Current Implementations<\/strong><\/p>\n Americans heading to the grocery store or their favorite fast-food restaurant will already have noticed the introduction of the new technology in such services as self-checkout kiosks and even AI ordering in drive-thru lanes.<\/p>\n Economic Pressures and Industry Response<\/strong><\/p>\n While U.S. consumers facing continued food inflation hunt for deals and shift their spending habits accordingly, the food industry is working to stay competitive by investing in artificial intelligence to help curb high labor operating costs and reduce prices on some items.<\/p>\n For example, fast-food chains like McDonald\u2019s, Taco Bell, and Wendy\u2019s have reintroduced value menus. And big-box retailers Walmart and Target have lowered the price of certain grocery goods.<\/p>\n Industry Challenges<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s very difficult in this environment to engineer great profits, great sales and to keep customers satisfied,\u201d said Neil Saunders, GlobalData\u2019s managing director and retail analyst. \u201cIt\u2019s a very difficult equation to balance. And I think until the economy is on a different footing, it\u2019s not going to be balanced completely. That\u2019s the reality of it.\u201c<\/p>\n Investments in Technology<\/strong><\/p>\n In 2022, grocery stores spent $13 billion on tech automations, according to research by FMI, The Food Industry Association. FMI expects spending on innovations like smart carts and revamped self-checkout aisles to soar 400% through 2025.<\/p>\n Future Prospects<\/strong><\/p>\n \u201cWe see a lot of upside over the next several years, with AI and technology being able to enhance customer experience while making the team members\u2019 jobs a lot easier,\u201d said Joe Park, Yum Brands\u2019 chief digital and technology officer.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" AI and Automation in the Food Industry<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":331,"featured_media":48151,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[2658,15007],"class_list":["post-48150","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-tech","tag-ai","tag-grocery"],"reading_time":"2 min read","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48150","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/331"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48150"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48150\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48151"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48150"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48150"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.businessupturn.com\/usa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48150"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}