Gamification has been a buzzword in the restaurant industry for years, and usually refers to limited-service restaurants coming out with their own mobile games or adding a game of chance to the brand’s loyalty app. Recently, this digital marketing strategy has been expanding outside of mobile gaming to new platforms and customer bases.

Devour — a Web3-based food delivery platform that lets customers play games to earn rewards — just officially launched after being in community beta mode since last year. The 1Huddle tech tool gamifies restaurant staff training, and just launched a generative AI feature that can automatically turn staff training videos and manuals into interactive games. Like the mobile games launched by the likes of Jimmy John’s, Chipotle, and Chick-fil-A, these new and expanding tech platforms have one major goal in mind: increased customer (or employee) engagement through interactivity.

In other news this month, M&A activity in the competitive voice AI tech industry is heating up as Soundhound and ConverseNow both announced acquisitions, a new tech tool has debuted just for cooking burgers at the right temperature every time, and more.

Tech Tracker rounds up what’s happening in the technology sector of the restaurant industry, including news from restaurants, vendors, digital platforms, and third-party delivery companies. Here’s a breakdown of what you need to know and why:

How Devour is gamifying the food delivery industry

Devour is a Web3-based food ordering and engagement company that launched its mobile platform in January 2023, initially with the DevourGo VIP membership, which gamifies restaurant loyalty, and later last year with a delivery marketplace. Last month, DevourGo officially debuted nationally after almost a year of beta community testing. 

DevourGo VIP is the company’s Web3-based loyalty platform, where users can earn exp points and level up (just like in a videogame) by ordering food from partner restaurants, sharing their orders on social media, or playing simple video games on the platform. Customers can then trade in their DPAY rewards points for merchandise, and larger prizes like an Oculus, drones, and vacations. DevourGo also offers loot boxes full of virtual prizes on the blockchain, and restaurant rewards, and just announced a cryptocurrency partnership with Coinbase.

“Think of it as similar to DoorDash or Uber Eats from a marketplace standpoint, but with gamified loyalty and digital communities,” Shelly Rupel, CEO and cofounder of Devour, said. “The idea is to keep users coming back to the app for more than just placing orders. We want business for our merchants, but we also want to engage users and reward them in a different way than we historically have.”

Right now, there are thousands of restaurants available on the Devour platform nationally. It’s free to join for operators and Devour is offering three to six months of no transaction fees for new restaurants on the platform. After that, there’s  a 10% flat delivery fee. On the consumer side, there are convenience fees that are lowered when they sign up for the VIP pass (much like DashPass or Uber One).

1Huddle is using AI to gamify restaurant staff training

1Huddle is one of several new tech platforms trying to improve the hospitality employee training experience, which historically is a low-tech and tedious process. While several companies out there have used AI to digitize and personalize staff training modules, 1Huddle is taking it to the next level with a platform that gamifies the training process.

The platform just released a new product called AI Assist that can use generative AI to automatically turn any staff training video, manual, or text into a videogame.

“Our AI generates a challenging series of trivia questions based on the content provided by the brand and is enriched by a database of over 178 million game questions that are restaurant-specific,” 1Huddle founder and CEO Sam Caucci said. “Our AI-powered games then adapt over time to each individual worker playing the games in order to accelerate learning, close knowledge gaps, ensure retention, and recommend new games to be played to cross-skill restaurant workers.”

Currently 1Huddle is partnering with TAO Group, FB Society (Mexican Sugar, Sixty Vines, Haywire, and Food Hall), Nathan’s Famous, Dog Haus, bartaco, Bar Louie, and more restaurant operators nationally.

M&A activity grows in the voice AI technology sector

While NRN previously reported on ConverseNow’s acquisition of former voice AI competitor Valyant AI, this major merger isn’t the only acquisition news to come out of the buzzy voice AI sector. Soundhound announced this month the acquisition of online ordering platform Allset, with the goal of strengthening Soundhound’s place in the voice AI sphere and “building toward its vision of a voice commerce ecosystem.”

With the acquisition, Soundhound will be able to add voice AI features to its suite of capabilities wherever consumers are ordering food delivery via voice technology, including in cars, on smart TVs, and through handheld smart devices. Soundhound’s current restaurant partners will now have full access to Allset’s products and vice versa.

ConverseNow and Soundhound have emerged as two of the most powerful voice AI platforms in the restaurant industry as more operators add voice AI capabilities to the drive-thru, calling center, and more. With these acquisitions, the two tech companies are further solidifying their reputation in a tech industry that’s quickly shrinking as smaller foodservice tech companies are bought up by larger ones.   

Aniai robotics company unveils an AI tool for cooking burgers perfectly

Robotics company Aniai just unveiled a new AI tool that has the singular purpose of making sure burgers are cooked perfectly and consistently. The new technology is called Alpha Cloud and piggybacks off Alpha Grill, Aniai’s commercial robotic grill.

“We have cameras and sensors built on Alpha Grill that capture live photos of each patty to check the doneness, primarily done by assessing color,” Jiyoung Hwan, marketing manager for Aniai, said. “These images are then sent to our OS, Alpha Cloud, where we overlay AI to analyze the photos against historical data. Alpha Cloud not only provides real-time data, but also all historical data as well, which can give larger brands significant handling over their products.”

The product is currently in test phase and is being piloted in innovation centers of multiple American burger brands, while Alpha Grills are currently being deployed in 15 locations in South Korea.

Aniai also recently closed a pre-series A fundraising round of $12 million. Alpha Cloud will be going live early in 2025.

Lunchbox launches catering platform

Foodservice technology company Lunchbox just announced the launch of Cater: a platform and resource hub for catering operators and the company’s first community based on the expanding catering industry (which is expected to nearly double in value by 2032).

Cater is less of a tech tool and more like a digital community that provides news, resources, and catering updates for those in the industry. Lunchbox will also be creating the restaurant industry’s first Catering Council: a directory of experts who will provide masterclasses and tools to help operators ace catering divisions.

Cater is an offshoot of Lunchbox’s catering order management suite, Lunchbox Catering.