Rich tomrle Tech Tuesday.
Rich is heard every Saturday eleven am to two pm right here and on KTLA every day, Instagram at rich on Tech website, rich on tech dot Tv.
Good morning, Rich, Good morning to you, Bill. Quick question and this one.
I find fascinating that Applebee's and I Hop are testing AI in their restaurants.
So let me get this. I don't see how it connects. Do you go into.
An I Hop and you say I'd like buttermilk pancakes and the AI says, no, you don't. You want chocolate chip pancakes this time around? Based on all of the information that's out there and how many times you've ordered pancakes.
I don't quite understand how this connects.
Yeah, well, this is a trend that we're going to see at a lot of restaurants and in fact, a lot of businesses anywhere that they have data that they can use on their customers. And so Dine Brands, which is based in Pasadena, owns Applebee's and I Hop. Did you know that, by the way, they're the same company.
No, did not.
Yeah, well there you go, now you know it. So, yeah, Applebee's and I Hop using this this AI technology and so I'm guessing since they deployed tablets at these restaurants a while back, well recently, that's how they're going to
do this. So they're adding a loyalty you know, like a loyalty membership kind of service where you you know, same thing like a Ralph's like a card, So it'll know who you are, what you've ordered in the past, and it also knows what other people are ordering, So of course on a Saturday morning at nine am, it knows the popular breakfast meals that people are doing, and it can also upsell you. So it's going to be a personalized personalization engine that will recommend not only meals
but also deals based on what you've ordered before. That makes a lot of sense. And then of course they're also going to use this to upsell folks. So if you order you know, the the like you said, the chocolate chip pancakes, they may say, well, last time you got bacon, want it you try sausage this time, you know,
whatever it is. So it's all about using that data to not only make the process easier for the customer of what they want to reorder and things like that, but also get them to try new things, Try different things, try trending things, try things that are more expensive. And again, this is something we're seeing in the restaurant business in general. They're all embracing AI to you know, to get that bill higher.
Is the world of waiters servers disappearing, where you order everything at the table and the only people there are the ones that are producing, are just moving the food to your table and don't get much money.
I mean, I think we're definitely seeing a trend towards quick service. People like the idea of quick service because it's that restaurant that you order at the you know, at the menu, you order at the counter, and then
someone brings it out to your table. Personally, I like that because the quality of those restaurants that used to be just fast food restaurants that would happen at Now I feel like the quality of the quick service restaurant has gotten higher, but the prices are not as expensive as say a full service restaurant like an Applebee's or
an ihop, So I think customers like it. We also know that restaurants are looking for various ways to save money, and so I've been in restaurants where they have robots delivering the food. You know, they roll around, even at a CPK where you know they put the food on the robot, the robot comes to your table, You take the food off the robot, and then the robot collects the plates as well. So I mean we're seeing all
kinds of new ways of embracing technology at restaurants. Of course, it's every tech company I talk to says, no, no, we're not out there to replace EMP. We're not out there to emplace replace human employees. But that sort of ends up happening.
Of course. Yeah.
I mean if you're at the table. One of the great things about and I do this at Chili's.
Because you can order I believe it.
Chili's off the computer, off that iPad thing, and that is you're not waiting for a so to come and take your order. I mean, it's done right there, and so it goes quicker. And then of course at the end it's as would you like to tip? Starting at twenty percent? Now, uh, twenty twenty five percent? How about thirty percent? How about eighty percent?
Tip? What do you think? Bill?
Yeah, I mean, look the tipping. We know the tipping thing has gotten out of control. I am I am a big proponent of tipping folks. I love tipping folks. I think that if someone is grabbing a muffin out of a you know, a glass area for me, and it takes them one second, and that's sort of like the job. You know, it doesn't feel right to tip thirty percent on that, But you know, at the end of the day, tipping is here to stay. Technology has definitely made it easier, and I think these might bill.
My theory with the whole tipping situation is this, you know, all these all these tips come from those like the products like the automated tablet services like the square, the point of sale services. I think the reason they like the tip so much is because they make a bigger percentage of that sale. Like they take a little a little percentage of that. And I think the more you tip, the more that company, whatever, that company handling the transaction, they get more money on the back end. So I
think that's why they push tips out so much. Maybe the people get it all, I'm not sure, but it sure seems like these automation companies are really pushing the tips because they make more based on that on the total sales.
But that's just the theory I have.
My idea is when I'm not particularly through the service, I still tip. But my tip is plant your corn in the spring and leave zero. That means there's my tip in the spring.
Yeah, leave like a tip, like a tip for growing your own food.
Okay, yeah, yeah, I just leave a tip. Yeah, here you go, change your oil regularly that it works out. Yeah, I hope you don't get that away. But that's at the end of the meal and not at the beginning, So don't spit in.
The food rich Tesla now has the robotaxi service in Austin. Hey, have we hit critical mass yet or how close are we to hitting it?
And all of a sudden it's hitting every city.
I don't know if we've gotten there just yet, but I will tell you that there are a lot of robo taxi services that are coming online recently. We know in Los Angeles, Weimo is a big part of the landscape here. In fact, when tourists come to LA that's one of the things that they make sure they put
on their list, take a ride in that. And they've launched in other cities as well, so you've got a bunch of cities across America that do have a similar service, but it's not a majority of the major cities just yet. I know weimo applied for a license in New York City, where you are not allowed to have self driving cars. But in Austin we've got the Tesla robo taxi. It's not exactly what was promised at the beginning. It's a very slow and small start. Ten to twenty cars operating
invite only at this point. It runs daily from six am to midnight. It avoids all kinds of things highways, airports, bad weather, tough intersections. There's still a safety operator. The ride price is pretty good four dollars twenty cents. If you this is funny bill. If you tap the tip button in the car, like at the end of your ride, you get a little message that says just kidding. So I do like that sense of humor there.
Hey you can't Is this gonna want let me put it the other way. Is this going to put uber lift out of business?
Well, that's the interesting thing is that, you know, Uber so far has not talked about their own self driving ambitions. A couple of many many years ago, they had their own self driving car project. They ditched that and they said it was too expensive and unrealistic. And now all these other companies like away Mo, like a Zooke's, like a Tesla, they are coming up and doing their own self driving. So what's happened in a lot of these cities is that Uber is the app that lets you
book the self driving. So I can't imagine that Uber is going to go out, but I do know that Uber has looked into the future and they know that a portion of rides, a percentage of rides will be
replaced by these automated robotaxis. What percentage of that of those rides and how long it's going to take for that to become one hundred percent, we don't know just yet, but I can guarantee that Uber and Lyft do not want to go out of business because of robotaxis, So they will find a way to either acquire these companies, acquire the startups that are doing this, or somehow be the platform that lets you book these robotaxis.
Yeah, I've never been in one Isuemo completely self driving as it as if well or as no driver is there.
There's no steering wheel, for example.
There is a steering wheel they're using they're using modified right now in LA, they're using modified Jaguars. And then they're also using this new car out of out of China. I believe it's called Zeker. And you know, so those are their two cars that they're using, and they are traditional cars. The Zeker is a little bit different looking. It looks more like a van, but you know, it's
a traditional car with a steering wheel that moves. There's just no one in there except you, and so Bill, I would I would recommend.
You try it.
I mean, it is a little apprehensive at first because you're giving up full control and we know when you drive in LA there's a lot of wild stuff that happens. But you know, they have a decent track record. People seem to like it, and they do avoid certain things like, for instance, you can't go from the valley to the airport. I'm not even sure you can go to the airport
at all in the Waimo right now. And so they do have these things locked in areas where they've identified that you know, they perform quite well in.
Yeah, well I and I use lyft I do.
And and in terms of apprehensive, boy, there's nothing more pleasant than talking to a lyft driver who got here yesterday from Pakistan.
That's a thrill.
And well sometimes those people are better drivers than people that are in LA for a long time. So I will tell me. The scariest thing I had happened to me Bill in an uber Okay, I take Uber and lift a lot. I was in an uber in another city and I asked the person driving. I said, hey, you know, what is this area we're in? This looks pretty nice and they go, oh, I don't know. I'm just driving for my brother. So they were using their
brother's app in their car to drive. The person was in the hospital, the actual driver, and so I was like, wait a second, what And so one thing to do always check the license plate, but check the picture of the driver. Make sure it actually looks like that person.
Yeah okay, and I've never had that issue, but okay, some good advice real quickly.
Samsung Foldable as a new foldable.
I really enjoyed the foldables and they're so retro now of course, what's going on with that?
I mean, Samsung's been doing these foldable smartphones for seven years now.
Which is just wild.
I mean it started sorry six years now, twenty nineteen. They started. This is going to be their seventh generation of foldable phones. They will be unveiled at an event in Brooklyn, New York on July ninth. We're going to get the Z Flip seven and the Z Fold seven slimmer, better cameras and bill. You know, one opens up like a book, the other sort of like a reporter's notebook. I guess one flips up, one flips open.
All right, So we're not talking about the old phones.
And when I think a foldable I think about the phones that you know, flip open and you it's top to bottom and they're.
Small and you put them up to your ear, you know, the way those first phones don't even know what they're called. Yeah, the Motorola, like the razor, Yeah, yeah, the original Motorola.
Yeah. These they do have one model, the Flip seven is like that where it flips open like the old school flip phone, like you you know, you called a you know, like a clamshell phone. Yes, that's the small one, but it's not that you know, it doesn't have the dialer like you would imagine, you know, like that's the
true old school flip phone. But those are making a comeback and for sure people do like those because you know, we're getting this overload with technology and people sort of like the idea of going back to the old school flip phone. So those are selling pretty well as well.
Yeah, I've ready to talked about retro. And I remember with the phones. I'm assuming you were around when it was a big block half the size of the phone book. Oh yeah, Tennis sticking out. No, that's great boy, you look at technology.
All right, Rich, thank you, We will catch you this weekend and as always on KTLA, I have a good one.
Thanks Bill.
All right,