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🚀 The Digital Restaurant Podcast - 100th Episode Special! 🎉

Welcome to a milestone episode of The Digital Restaurant! This is our 100th episode, and while it's a moment of celebration, it also comes with a bittersweet note—Meredith is off to Seattle to take on an exciting EVP role at Starbucks. We’ll miss her insights, but the show must go on!

In this episode, Carl Orsbourn takes the mic solo to explore the next evolution of restaurant and retail tech: moving beyond SaaS into holistic reasoning and AI-driven orchestration.

Key Topics Discussed:

✅ The Downside of SaaS & Siloed Systems
SaaS unlocked incredible capabilities for restaurants and retailers, but it also created fragmented systems that hinder efficiency. APIs were meant to solve this, yet they often fail to integrate seamlessly.

✅ The Need for Data Unification
APIs, when implemented, are usually linear and siloed. Carl explains why data unification is essential—moving from fragmented systems to a connected web of insights.

✅ AI Agents & Chain of Thought Reasoning
Businesses can’t rely on isolated software. The future lies in AI-driven models that adapt and learn. Carl explores Chain of Thought (CoT) Reasoning, which threads insights across departments, bridging silos and improving decision-making.

✅ What Amazon’s 2002 API Mandate Teaches Us
Carl discusses Jeff Bezos’ API mandate, which forced Amazon to break down silos and create an interconnected platform. This move helped Amazon become an AI-driven powerhouse—a model businesses should consider.

✅ Real-World Use Cases
AI-driven orchestration can transform demand forecasting, merchandising, supply chains, and personalization. Imagine:

• Localized marketing & staffing auto-adjusted in real-time.
• Retail shelving resets triggered by AI-detected sales patterns.
• Hotels personalizing guest experiences dynamically.

✅ The Urgency of Fixing Data Quality First
Carl shares a key quote from Invisible’s CEO:
"When great AI meets bad data, the data always wins."
With only 8% of AI models making it to production, clean data, model training, and continuous learning are essential.

🔮 The Future: From SaaS to Model-Driven Innovation
Companies waiting for SaaS integrations will be left behind. The winners will be those shifting toward AI agents that dynamically align decisions with business goals.

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