Agot.AI just closed a $10 million round of funding for its computer vision technology marketed to fast food employers. Their keystone product, Agot AI Kitchen Awareness, uses machine learning to translate video monitor streams to analytical data.
Involving minimal maintenance and unlimited sensors, the surveillance system tracks order accuracy and quality. The cameras can be installed to collect information from in-store, drive-thru, or online ordering platforms. By issuing real-time alerts to line workers, Agot AI’s goal is to improve the revenue, efficiency, and customer experience of the fast-food industry through automated management.
Agot, a young start-up founded by a class of 2020 graduates of Carnegie Mellon’s AI undergraduate program, raised just $50,000 in their initial May 2020 funding round, Now, new investors of Agot.AI include The Kitchen Fund (Sweetgreen investor) and Continent Grain (Panera Bread and Keurig investor). With the pandemic-prompted boom of takeout and drive-thru dining, Agot.AI could prove more valuable than ever for restaurant operators. By minimizing pain points of pick-up time and order accuracy, and reducing reliance on labor, operators can increase profit margins.
While employers may look forward to the prospect of streamlining operations with the use of real-time feedback, workers may perceive the Kitchen Awareness product as intrusive of their privacy or an impersonal form of management.
As digital tools and trends towards delivery rapidly reshape the landscape of F&B, restaurant operators must contend with the benefits and drawbacks of implementing new industry products.
According to co-founder and CEO Evan DeSantola, Agot.AI Kitchen Awareness can identify over 85% of all order errors. The typical Agot.AI customer has at least 2,000 locations. “Our vision is to autonomously manage a restaurant,” said fellow co-founder Alexander Litzenberger.
