AI on the Phone: Transforming Restaurant Order Management

Julien Redelsperger: « And I'm super happy to welcome Adam Ahmad. He is the founder of Kea, which is a company that uses AI and voice technology to own the relationship with customers in restaurants. So today we're going to talk about restaurants, AI and customer service. Thank you for joining me today. How are you, Adam? »

Adam Ahmad: « Doing well. Thanks for having me on the show. »

Julien Redelsperger: « Yeah, absolutely. We're going to have a great conversation. Before we get started, could you please tell me a little bit more about yourself and about Kea? What's your story and what's the story behind Kea and who do you help? »

Adam Ahmad: « Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I'm a lover of the restaurant space since 2012. Started a food delivery company called Food Lovers United Company. Really found, I think, the happiness in kind of helping three different constituencies, right? The driver delivering the food, the restaurant making the food, and then of course, the customer just having such an amazing experience when they receive the food. Ever since that time in 2012, I have been focusing on really empowering a lot of the service industry and trying to figure out this big labor issue that I think is occurring globally right now with regards to restaurants just not having enough staff inside the store. And so my latest foray into helping the service industry, starting with restaurants, is called Kea. And we are building a voice AI company to help them process orders today. »

Julien Redelsperger: « And so what sparked the idea to bring AI into restaurant phone lines? Because restaurants and phone lines are pretty, I would say, old school technology. AI is changing everything. How do you combine both? And what do you do with AI? »

Adam Ahmad: « It really started, I think, obviously with a person taking these orders, right? And even so today, I would say a majority of the orders that occur when we order at a place like a restaurant is actually using our voice, whether we're walking in the store, whether we're calling the store, whether we're at a drive-thru at a store. And so contrary to popular belief, we actually use our voice more than online and web. But up until now, there has not been great technologies to be able to digitize these more human type of experiences. And I think part of the reason we're here today is because the world has really forced us, right? Without having people that can show up to the restaurants, there wouldn't be companies that would be important like us in the industry. And so I think we're solving a very old problem, as you can probably tell from just thinking about phone ordering. But in reality, we're solving a much larger problem for the world that is actually very much used to voice ordering. »

Julien Redelsperger: « Okay. So just to recap your solution, so that's an AI component on the phone. So if I'm calling a restaurant, I will have an AI answering me, taking my orders. What else can it do? »

Adam Ahmad: « Yeah. So we are effectively really an extension of the brand, right? We're taking a voice that we have used and really modified towards their particular menu, the restaurant's menu. And all the traffic that would otherwise go directly to the restaurant is now coming to Kea to fulfill right at the beginning. So we're able to answer common questions like, 'Are you guys open today? What are the store hours?' It's not just taking the orders, it's actually really extending that brand presence for the restaurant by answering all the other questions that typically come into a restaurant, right? When you're on your way, right? Whether you're trying to order delivery, what's on the menu, all of those types of things. And then we actually take the orders as well and digitize those and send it to the POS systems so that they can process it. So it's business like usual, but the phones really just stop ringing, I would say 95% of the time. »

Julien Redelsperger: « Okay. So that means you don't have to have someone to be on the phone to take orders or to answer questions. Your system can do it for the restaurants. »

Adam Ahmad: « That's right. »

Julien Redelsperger: « And so your solution works with phone orders and calls, but I need you to help me understand something here. Why do we still need to call a restaurant when we have all those apps, like Uber Eats and DoorDash and OpenTable, etc.? Because I'm going to be honest, I haven't called a restaurant in a while. I always order online on my app, on my phone. »

Adam Ahmad: « Right. But if you think about why that happened, right? We're calling, calling, calling these restaurants and then we're like, 'Can you please be on hold on the other side?' And people kept saying that and saying that and saying that. And again, when you have fewer people, that experience becomes worse, right? You can't answer the phone. If you think about voice in general, it's actually better than an online or mobile ordering experience arguably, right? You can just say it and it happens versus downloading an app, right? Going to a website, typing everything, and ultimately then putting your credit card in manually. It's like a one minute experience versus like a four or five minute experience. And so I think online and mobile has really been a prescription to the lack of being able to do this over the phone in kind of more of a first class way up until now with technologies that are able to have a really good experience, right? It's no longer the IVR world anymore. We're now in the world of LLMs. »

Julien Redelsperger: « So for ordering a meal at a restaurant, do you know roughly the percentage of the people who actually call versus the people who actually order online on Uber Eats or something else? »

Adam Ahmad: « So it depends on the restaurant. Of course, there are some restaurants that, you know, pizza places where they're doing still 80% of their revenue over the phone. And 20% is people using the apps, right? Or ordering online or showing up into the restaurant. So you won't believe it. There are some restaurants that have seven phone lines in the back of their store and they just constantly are being barraged by calls and there's full-time people still answering them. Okay. And so there are restaurants like that. And then of course there are restaurants that, you know, are more of the kind of imagine like a build your own concept, right? You just show up to the restaurant. You're probably not calling ahead for those restaurants, but you're still getting a lot of calls for non-order related, right? Like people just want to learn about the brand. And I think by having different touch points for customers to engage with the brand, including voice is what they're really excited about. »

Julien Redelsperger: « Okay. And if I call a restaurant and I'm talking to an AI, do I know as a customer that I'm talking to an AI or is it so streamlined that I could not know? »

Adam Ahmad: « Yeah. I listened to some of these calls and, you know, they actually at the end of the call, they're like, was that real? Was that a real human? So they can definitely tell. I think a lot of customers that are calling in, there's still that, that, that robotiness to it. Of course, we're trying to accelerate and partner with a lot of providers out there that can help us make it more human-like and just a bit more friendly because it's, I think the hardest part about the next 10 years will really be how do we get people to sort of warm up to the idea of interacting with an AI, not just over voice, but, you know, that could be said about the robotics world and, you know, other automation technologies. And I think, I think part of making the voice in this case, voice in this case, a bit more human will help in that acceleration toward that path. »

Julien Redelsperger: « And how does your system handle, you know, different ways people talk? Like I'm in Canada, but I'm from France. I know when I speak English, I have a French accent. How do you manage those accents and vocabulary that are different, specifically in the US where it's so diverse? »

Adam Ahmad: « Yeah, no, this has been a very hard problem to solve. And I think we're very lucky that it's not a completely solved problem, but there's been many providers that we've been able to partner with to enable us to understand accents globally, really. I think the accuracy is frequently good these days. You can get to, you know, 90, 95% accurate from speech to text, right? And then it's our job in the background to use our own machine learning technology to actually understand what's being said and then translate that into an order that can be processed. »

Julien Redelsperger: « Okay. So that means your system is able to recognize like someone speaking in English ordering like pizzas with an Indian accent or Asian accent or I don't know, Spanish accent. »

Adam Ahmad: « That's right. »

Julien Redelsperger: « And what is the technology? If we go a little bit deeper here, do you use your own technology in terms of AI or do you license, I don't know, like, is it like OpenAI or, or Jiminy or like, what's what's the tech behind it? »

Adam Ahmad: « Absolutely. So a lot of the tech is our own proprietary tech, of course. We are, you know, watching this industry boom in, I think, incredible ways, right? Every day that goes by, there's another, you know, startup that is blooming in the LLM space. So our philosophy has been, why don't we work with the industry, right. And all work together to sort of advance this technology. And so if there's other LLM providers that we can test our own tech with, right, that that'll allow ourselves to advance at a faster clip. We've taken a more open approach, right. And kind of use best of breed and build on top of that, make sure that we have really high quality models that are able to understand. And I think one thing Kea is particularly very good at is understanding the menu context. It's one thing to be able to read a particular menu item with our technology, but to truly understand what that menu item is, even if it's a very odd sounding name, right. If it's like a, instead of a veggie pizza, it's called a, you know, veggie pizza with several G's and E's. We can be able to translate that into what it actually means. And so that's something that is a very hard problem, right. And I think will increasingly become harder unless we all work together, right. And we all use kind of the best of breed technologies to help our guests. »

Julien Redelsperger: « How many restaurants do you work with? »

Adam Ahmad: « So we work with, in the moment, hundreds of restaurants. »

Julien Redelsperger: « Yeah. And primarily in the United States. And do you have a plan to extend your operations abroad? Canada, Mexico? »

Adam Ahmad: « Yeah, no, big, big plans on that front. Can't share too much on timing, but we are very excited to be looking at the international markets as well. »

Julien Redelsperger: « Okay. And who are your clients? Like, can you share a couple of names? I don't know, like there are like small independent restaurants or like big brands that you can see everywhere? »

Adam Ahmad: « Yeah, no, I'd love to. So we work with a number of great brand partners and a lot of them are kind of in this mid-market zone where, you know, they've got about a hundred to let's say 500 restaurants and they just really need some help on the voice AI side. Larger brands, of course, have a ton of resources. They can do, you know, pilots, but often they take a longer time. And so we're finding a ton of interest in the mid-market zone and getting a lot of those restaurant brands up and running. These are folks that don't really have a lot of tech resources and they just need kind of a virtual helping hand, so to speak. And we're that for that, right? We come in, we understand their menu, right? We can pull it from their various APIs and we can get to work. There's no additional work that they necessarily have to do because they've already built up their menu with their POS provider. Right. And so we're just pulling that and audiophiling that ultimately for them. And so that's really the area of customers that we're working with and most successful with. »

Julien Redelsperger: « And so what are the main reasons restaurants are moving into AI? Is it because of like shortage of staff? Is it like for financial reasons? I don't know. Like why did they switch? »

Adam Ahmad: « So I think people right now, when we approach them, it's the first time they're buying AI, right? They've actually never really even thought that it was possible to do what we're doing for them. And so when we come in, I think there's a lot of different ways that people see our value. Primarily, of course, if you look on April 1st, a lot of the, in California, several jurisdictions moved up to that minimum $20 an hour wage. And that has repercussions. And again, there's really two areas, it's labor and food costs that you can really try to optimize and make more efficient. And Kea has seen is that, I think in both areas, we can help, right? We're helping augment the ability to take these orders with AI. So that can supercharge a cashier at the restaurant. Now they can become more of a dual purpose part of the personnel where they're taking orders right there. They're at the front of the store, they're in the back of the store, they're helping out in the kitchen. And you can pay that personnel a really great wage instead of what is typically seen in the restaurant industry. »

Julien Redelsperger: « That's interesting. And so when I call a restaurant equipped with Kea, that means I'm going to talk to an AI and that AI must know the menu, what are the dishes and stuff like that. So what are the biggest challenge you face when training your AI to understand the menu or nuances of each restaurant? Because it could vary obviously from one restaurant to another. »

Adam Ahmad: « Yeah. I think it's so fascinating how restaurants come up with their menu and the items and all the different ways you can modify them. But what's been really interesting to see is that even though they have their menu set up a certain way, when people call, they actually have all kinds of different requests, all kinds of interesting things like, 'Oh, I want the pepperoni underneath the cheese and I want the toppings on the side,' and so on. And these things are not on the menu. And so Kea becomes this, I would say, super brain for the restaurant where it's capturing all of these different nuances and handling them in a certain way to increase the margins. Because when we're not providing great operations and we're not consistent with the brands, then the brands are actually not being able to produce as much as they could produce from a profitability perspective. So we're really helping them to standardize things. And I think that's one thing that we do quite well when we're working with brands. And that's been one of the challenges, I think, early on when we did not understand these things. You all of a sudden are not really providing the service that they need over the phone. They need to be able to make these things standardized or they need to allow for these things to happen properly, like charge for the things that they're actually doing extra. And so we help that to make happen. But I think just capturing all these little, little, little details has been a lot, right? A lot to sort of understand. Because on the onset, it's one thing. But when you really go behind the scenes, it's a totally different thing in the kitchen. »

Julien Redelsperger: « So how do you do it? Just like you take the PDF of the menu, you give it to your AI, and then it learns from here and it goes to... »

Adam Ahmad: « Yeah, exactly. It learns from there. We're able to also listen to a lot of the calls that are going on. And that helps with our learning because obviously we don't want to just start fresh when we go into a brand. So we're really trying to capture as much information as we can to try to provide the best guest experience. »

Julien Redelsperger: « And so how long does that training phase last? How long before your system is fully operational and available to the customer? »

Adam Ahmad: « Yeah. So it used to take months. I think now we're in the weeks territory just because of the efficiencies we've been able to build within the process. And I think one day it'll end up becoming within days where you can have your own AI that really understands all these details. And so that's typically how long it can take to get everything up and running. »

Julien Redelsperger: « And what does it take so long? Just explain to me, during all those weeks, what does your system is actually learning? How does it work? How does it process

all the information? »

Adam Ahmad: « Yeah. So if you think about a menu, on the onset, it looks like there's maybe 20 items. There's different modifiers. There's different drinks that you can add. There's different combos. But the actual way when the customer is speaking those orders, they could be saying it in tens of thousands of different ways over the phone. So I'll give you an example. Hey, I'd like a large cheese pizza. And I'd like mushrooms, olives on there. Can I also get a garlic cheesy bread and a two liter of Coke? Actually, you know what? Can you change that cheese pizza? And can you add-- so you get what I'm saying. There's so many different things that you can do over the voice, because it's not very structured. It's a very unstructured piece of data, if you will. And so you have to think about how do you structure all of that data based on what's reality behind the scenes when phone calls are coming in. And that's really where a lot of the time, just understanding what's going on, it can take to have more of a higher quality AI. There's a lot of context that is in the menu. If they have a certain combo, you may not be able to add a particular type of soup with that combo. But we need to understand that. We need to learn that. And that's what takes a lot of the time today. »

Julien Redelsperger: « So in that case, the AI knows the menu by heart and as good as a human person, technically. »

Adam Ahmad: « Yeah, that's exactly right. And the idea is that AI is perfect when it's being able to take everything properly. But when it doesn't, we actually have a human in the loop that we can introduce at any moment in time. So you could be ordering with the AI, and then all of a sudden, you may be going through a tunnel, and we don't understand exactly what's being said. The speech recognition is not producing. And at that point in time, we can have a human jump into the call. And this is one of our own customer success agents that's making sure that the order becomes successful as they're placing the rest of the order if they need to. So the AI says, 'Okay, I have an issue to understanding you. So I'm just sending an alert to the agent that can jump in.' »

Julien Redelsperger: « That's right. Okay. So how do you gauge data privacy? I mean, ordering a pizza in a restaurant is not super confidential or anything, but how do you store your data? Do you take any specific measure in terms of data privacy? Because that's a big topic in terms of AI. »

Adam Ahmad: « Yeah. No, it's an evolving world, I think, in the AI sphere. I'm very happy that we're putting guardrails into this because I think while we're taking pizza orders today, there are going to be companies that figure this technology out for other use cases, which may not be as positive in helping the world per se. So we take data privacy very seriously. We are constantly looking at different ways that we can be even more secure and make sure that the data is protected for all of our customers. We are a PCI compliant company, and so we go through the most stringent testing to make sure that we can process credit cards. We're taking cards at the end of the calls often. We got to make sure that all of that is secure and being sent securely to the POS systems. And ultimately, we want to empower these restaurants. We don't want to become an aggregator per se, where we're taking one customer's data and sending it to another restaurant and helping them. The idea is really to empower the brand and really own that relationship with their customers, really bring that person, that customer back to having that kind of one-on-one dialogue and having a better brand experience and doing that with voice. So you take the orders and you're able to process the payment as well? »

Adam Ahmad: « That's correct. »

Julien Redelsperger: « Okay. So how does it work? The AI just asks, 'Give me your credit card number on the phone,' and I process the payment? »

Adam Ahmad: « Yeah. It's totally de-scoped from any human, right? There's no human that's actually taking the credit card number, which makes it actually feel that it's so much more secure, especially when you're ordering and you go to the payment part. Because if you think about what happens, a cashier is answering the phone and oftentimes they're just writing the credit card number on a piece of paper, which is, I think, very scary sometimes because you may have a bad actor. But we're making it more secure for customers by taking their credit card through the AI. They can say the credit card number, they can type in the credit card number, and then we process that payment for the restaurant. »

Julien Redelsperger: « And I guess you are not storing the credit card number, are you? That's right. In terms of customer feedback, what do they say to you? Do you have any feedback from customers where they're surprised or scared? What do they think about it? »

Adam Ahmad: « Yeah, very mixed reactions. I think when people interact with an AI, some people are like, 'I don't want to even give this a chance.' They're just hitting that zero button constantly. They don't believe in it because they're so used to what is, I think, what the last 10, 15 years have looked like, even beyond, of the state of IVR systems where you're just pressing one, two to get to places. Or you can only say three or four phrases that the system will understand. But now it is completely different. As soon as we start talking and showing the intelligence of the system, that's when people start to believe they keep going. So majority of the calls that we do get today, we actually follow through all the way to the end, making sure that whatever they wanted to do, whether that was to understand a piece of information or place an order, it'll go through.

Julien Redelsperger: « And is your AI able to say, 'Okay, your order will be ready in 10 minutes, 15 minutes, an hour,' because there is a very long line? Yeah. Is it possible? »

Adam Ahmad: « Yeah, it's able to do that. So we've got great partners which allow us to understand certain aspects of what's going on in the kitchen. For example, if some item is out of stock, we're able to learn in real time because let's say a cashier or cook goes to the POS, they say, 'Oh, my dessert is out of stock.' We also get to know. And that way, if that dessert is out of stock, we can offer a different dessert as an example. We're also able to learn the ETA times, right? When is the order going to be delivered? When is it going to be picked up? With our Olo partnership, we're able to plug into DoorDash, Uber Eats, all these different delivery providers that are able to tell us when they're going to be able to deliver and let the guests know through the voice. »

Julien Redelsperger: « Okay. So when you order on the phone, you could also have the food delivered at home or in the office? »

Adam Ahmad: « Yeah. Or you can just go to the restaurant to pick it up. We can do both now. Yeah. We just announced, I think about a week ago, the ability to order any food over the phone and actually have it delivered to you. »

Julien Redelsperger: « Okay, nice. And that means you're going to pay the price the restaurant is going to charge you? Because I know sometimes the restaurant charges a higher price for DoorDash or Uber Eats, for example. »

Adam Ahmad: « Yeah, absolutely. So of course, they'll still get charged, but it's a different fee when the customer is coming directly to the restaurant versus if they're going through directly the apps. And so by coming directly to the restaurant, they are actually saving some money because they don't have to pay that as high of a fee. Usually the fee can be as high as 20, 30%, but when you go direct, you're actually saving 15 to 20% at times. »

Julien Redelsperger: « Have there been any moments where the AI really surprised you by handling a tricky order really well or answering, I don't know, weird questions? »

Adam Ahmad: « Oh yeah. Yeah. All the time. It's very eerie to see how it's progressed, just being able to do all these crazy things. We just talked about an example where I changed my mind and I went back and I added another topping or I wanted to remove a topping. And so those types of things I think are quite incredible. Even some of the technologies that are out there are not able to do that yet. Devices that we use on a day-to-day basis are still not able to get to that level yet. And so we're very excited, I think, starting off with restaurants to be able to do this with those types of use cases coming in. »

Julien Redelsperger: « Do you have any examples, real-life examples to share? »

Adam Ahmad: « Yeah. The pizza one earlier happens all the time. There's one brand that we've got, it's called Nuke's Eatery. They've got nearly a hundred stores down in the Southern part of America. And oftentimes a lot of people are ordering a pick-a-pair is what they call it. It's a sandwich and soup combo. And so they'll say, 'I want this sandwich,' and then, 'I want this soup.' And then you kind of see the customer change the soup and salad several times, three or four times, and they're kind of just bouncing back and forth. Sometimes of course we have to introduce the human in the loop for those complex situations. But the AI is really starting to be able to do a lot of these types of complex situations when customers just don't know. You're sitting in front of the menu and you've got all these different thoughts going on. Another great example is you have a husband and wife, they're trying to debate on what to order. It's a Friday night and you kind of have one person on speaker and then someone else is in the kitchen yelling what they want. And the AI is still able to pick up those types of things. And even when there's two voices kind of speaking in order. So I think those are some really awesome examples we see almost every day. »

Julien Redelsperger: « Okay. And so when you talk to restaurant owners about AI on the phone, what do they tell you? What do they think about AI? »

Adam Ahmad: « I know you mentioned they are not all very tech savvy, but what's their mindset here? So the restaurants, it's very mixed. Right now I think I saw, I'm sure you've seen the Will Smith AI example where he's eating the spaghetti. We're kind of in the very first or second inning, I would say, of a long journey here where it's going to take time for people to warm up to the fact that an AI can actually do as great as what we would be able to do. It's going to take time to, I think, get people to that world. And we're in the very early stages. So there are some people that are very, I think, future forward. They really want to get this in now and kind of be the early adopter and really make sure that they're ready for the future, ready for the next five to 10 years where inflation is only going to get worse. The cost of labor and food is only going to be higher. And so by implementing it now, they're sort of building, I think, the future of their own companies. And then you have people that they just would never implement an AI. And that's OK. We've had customers that we approached two or three years ago, and they're now knocking on our door saying, hey, when can we get started? So like I said, I think it's really just playing the long game here and kind of helping every restaurant we can that is willing to adopt. And for those that don't, I think it's not going to be about are we going to use AI? That's not going to be the question. It's which AI are we going to use in the next years to come. »

Julien Redelsperger: « OK. And so I believe your team told me that about 40% of revenue was lost because people couldn't answer the phone because they were busy or understaffed. Is that true? Is that the reality of the restaurants today in the US? »

Adam Ahmad: « There are many restaurants that actually are even beyond that. They're losing 60, 70%, if not more. Sometimes there's just one person in the restaurant that is able to show up to a shift, maybe two. And so the obvious area is not to go to the phone and answer that phone. It's to just get as many orders out as you can during that time. Because you got people coming in the restaurant, you got delivery orders coming in. And so the phone is often very overlooked because you have so many calls coming in, but you never know when the calls will come in. And you have people right in front of you that you have to take care of right away. So that, I think, is the challenge for a lot of restaurants. And we see, again, restaurants exceeding that number. It's certainly a higher number for certain types of restaurants where the ETA might take 15 minutes to cook the food because it just takes time. And you want to call ahead. I think those restaurants are struggling more right now. »

Julien Redelsperger: « And would you say, it is worse than before the pandemic? Or do you see some improvement in specific areas? »

Adam Ahmad: « It's very dependent on the market. Some markets that are increasing in their wages, they're still at the pandemic levels, all-time lows. Then you have other markets that are doing just fine with labor, but they're trying to figure out, how do I generate more revenue with the four walls that I'm in? Because if the food costs are going higher and inflation is going up and you've got the labor costs going up, even though you may be able to sustain yourself with what you have, you want to start thinking about, what do I do for the future? Because my margins are only going to dwindle. And that's what we see in the restaurant industry, that the margins have just been dwindling and dwindling because of this. »

Julien Redelsperger: « Where do you see the restaurant business in five years, 10 years, 20 years? »

Adam Ahmad: « I don't know. I would say it's at this point where it's a huge tipping point in our industry. And I think even beyond 10 years, I could totally see a fully autonomous restaurant. In fact, there are some already. And they're at smaller scale right now, but they are out there. And globally, we see this already happening. There are several restaurants that have automated dishwashers, automated ways to cook the burger, automated ways to be able to get the French fries going. And so this is the future. I think it'll take a bit more time for us to, again, warm up to a lot of these ideas, but certainly see a fully autonomous restaurant with more of the brand trying to focus on the guest experience, especially. »

Julien Redelsperger: « And so technically, your AI works for restaurants, but it could work for a coffee shop or maybe some shops or supermarkets or any kind of business, actually. »

Adam Ahmad: « Yeah. Our vision really is to build the voice AI for any business. That is the idea, right? There's so much going on behind a phone call. And we believe that it's not the greatest experience today for various reasons that I think are outside of our control. But now that there is this technology, we can create great experiences for various different types of businesses, starting with restaurants. »

Julien Redelsperger: « And so how can you improve your AI? What's your roadmap for the next year or so? »

Adam Ahmad: « Yeah, for us, it's really fulfilling the needs of our customers, right? We have tons of customers that are waiting to join the Kea platform. And so just creating an efficiency in terms of the process to onboard onto the AI and get that into a faster motion is a big focus for us. There's no doubt there's a huge demand for the service. It's making sure that we maintain great consistency, because as we do scale up, we want to make sure that what got us here is something that we maintain in terms of just the grit of making sure that all of the orders come out in a sort of accurate fashion. And so a lot of focus on that, the scalability and making sure that guests are having great experience. »

Julien Redelsperger: « And what do you need to scale? Do you need just like more funds or are you funded by VCs or is it just your own money? »

Adam Ahmad: « Yeah, we're very privileged to be a VC backed. We have a number of great investors involved. And we are primarily on the engineering side, always looking to improve and make sure that we have further investment in those resources. So partly it's a personnel game, making sure that we can handle everything that we have. And then of course, the operations. We're now responsible for some restaurants that's 18 hours a day, we're expected to be up and running. So we need to maintain and make sure that we're there for people when they need us most, especially. And so making sure we scale the operational side is a big focus as well. »

Julien Redelsperger: « OK, perfect. Well, thank you so much, Adam. So at the end of each episode, the guest must answer a question posed by the previous guest. After that, you'll have the opportunity to ask a question for the next guest. Are you ready? »

Adam Ahmad: « Ready.

Julien Redelsperger: « Perfect. So here's your question, courtesy of John Rau, who is a product marketing manager for a Canadian tech company. We can listen to his question right now. »

John Rau : « So what I'm really curious about, because I know a lot of teachers and they have mixed opinions on generative AI. Some of them use it, some of them, their students use it, some don't use it, some don't let their students use it. Is AI a net positive for education or is it a net negative and why? »

Adam Ahmad: « No, I love that question. I am, you know, I ended up dropping out of school after my first semester in college. So this one hits home for me. I really believe that, you know, you can learn so much just off of the Internet. And now with the LLMs, you know, you can do so much more, but so much faster. Right. So if someone has curiosity and I think, you know, this is the world to be so much more curious about, you have, you know, kind of the world at your fingertips, so to speak. I think it's going to be a massive shift in education. I think less people will go to college and, you know, join a four year, you know, typical university and rather invest in, you know, focusing on speaking to an LLM, right. Using generative AI technologies to learn at a much faster clip and actually even do, you know, little mini businesses to experiment, right. And kind of see where they want to go versus spend a bunch of years doing one thing and then turn out, you know, you're five or six after you get into the job market that, in fact, you want to do something else, completely something different. So I think it'll shift the next generations to come to be more creative and really think about what they truly want to do and be able to try many different things before actually jumping all in to say one particular craft. »

Julien Redelsperger: « OK. And so and when you recruit for Kea, do you check the colleges or universities name? »

Adam Ahmad: « Oh, it's not a requirement at all. Yeah. You don't have to have a bachelor's degree or, you know, there isn't a requirement for that. Of course, you know, not to say that it's an amazing thing to do. And I think you still learn a great deal of knowledge, which is always great. So, you know, we certainly value those things. Not to say that we don't. It's just that we don't require it. »

Julien Redelsperger: « OK, perfect. Well, thank you so much for your answer, Adam. Now, what question would you like to pose for our next guest? »

Adam Ahmad: « Yeah. So this one is more food related, given Kea is focused on, you know, helping restaurants. There's a big debate about this around the world. And the question is, does pineapple go on pizza?

Julien Redelsperger: « I love that question. »

Adam Ahmad: « So it's not a hard one, but I'll let the next guest answer that one. »

Julien Redelsperger: « That's a good one. What's your answer? I want to hear your answer. »

Adam Ahmad: « My answer is that it does not go on pizza. »

Julien Redelsperger: « OK. Yeah. Same for me on a personal level. »

Julien Redelsperger: « All right. Thank you so much, Adam. It's been an absolute pleasure speaking with you today. Thank you for joining me. »

Adam Ahmad: « Awesome. Thanks for having me on, Julien. Thank you so much. »

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