How catering, automated vending and grocery-store licensing are keeping brands "Ahead of the Current" without adding brick-and-mortar overhead and with minimal labor costs.

Join us as we dive into the granular-level findings of HT’s latest research studies to uncover the why—and “so what?”—behind the numbers. We’ll bridge the gap between back-of-house efficiency (The POS Software Trends Report), front-of-house experience (Guest Engagement Study), and the intelligence layer connecting them (AI Impact Study). Attendees will walk away with a clear understanding of where industry leaders are placing their bets and how to align their tech stacks to meet the skyrocketing expectations of the modern guest.

If Voice AI is changing the way restaurants take orders, Vision AI has the potential to change just about everything else. Once thought of as a smarter surveillance system, operators are now using the technology for things like inventory management, quality assurance, customer service management, and more. Hear from an operator who implemented the technology 6 months ago—and about the effect its had on his operation. 

Most restaurant brands are still struggling with data silos where the POS doesn't talk to the CRM, and the CRM doesn't know what happened on the 3rd-party delivery app. This session is a 101 on the Unified Data Layer (UDL)—the move away from 50 separate integrations toward a single, clean source of truth that powers your AI.

As restaurant brands race to implement generative AI, predictive ordering, and advanced CRM platforms, data pipelines are expanding exponentially. But with great data comes great vulnerability. Learn how to architect a data strategy that fuels your marketing engine with high-quality insights while robustly protecting guest identities, payment information, and proprietary brand data from evolving cyber threats.

This session examines the evolving "make vs. buy" framework, exploring why the traditional competitive advantage of custom-built technology is shifting toward the strategic implementation of modern third-party platforms. We will discuss how to weigh the long-term value of homegrown stacks against the speed and scalability of enterprise solutions, specifically focusing on how shifting to a unified stack can accelerate the deployment of advanced AI and data-driven innovations.