Answers to the FAFH industry’s pressing AI questions

 

 

CHICAGO, August 11, 2025 - If there was an overall theme to Go2MarketEdge, a new conference focused on the technologies changing food-away-from-home marketing and sales, it might well have been the need for even the tech-challenged to take deep a breath and relax about AI. 

Its impact is indeed likely to be profound, speaker after speaker attested. But they agreed that AI is a tool that sharpens human abilities, not a replacement for the thought processes and decision-making of a walking, talking carbon lifeform. In all but the most routine situations where the computation ends in an action, human oversight is essential. 

Yet a show of hands during the event proved the technology does make a number of FAFH marketing and sales pros nervous. The expert presenters addressed that apprehension and outright fear by providing answers to key questions about the breakthrough advance. 

Here’s a sampling.

If I’m not up-to-speed on AI, am I already behind?

 “Anyone who proclaims themselves to be an AI expert is just a couple weeks ahead of you,” said Jon Miller, a leading expert on digital marketing and how AI is fitting into that process.  The technology is advancing at such a rapid clip that everyone is in catch-up mode, he suggested.

Others underscored that point by noting the next version of ChatGPT was due to be released on the morning of Go2MarketEdge’s third day. Several said the update will likely require even ChatGPT savants to relearn how to use the technology, arguably the most popular form of AI to date.

How do I get up to speed?

The best way, speakers agreed, is simply to learn through experience. They advised using AI frequently for non-essential tasks, like asking it to draft for your personal consumption a critique of a strategy or policy statement the company is already following.

Experimentation will foster both competence and confidence, the experts contended. And it’s absolutely necessary when an AI agent is updated with new capabilities and features, vis-a-vis what was happening with the release of ChatGPT 5.

“The best time to start was yesterday,” said Nickhil Tekwani, McDonald’s Manager of General AI/Machine Language Engineering. “The second-best time is today”

So how do I start?

There was a clear consensus on that point: Start small. “You don’t need to start with hundreds of thousands [of prompts] on the first day,” said  Tekwani. “Be okay with starting small.”

Several presenters suggested undertaking a small project that parallels a process currently done in conventional fashion. Then compare the results, noting in particular the difference in processing time.

What AI agent should I use? ChatGPT? Gemini? Copilot?

“They’re all the same,” and getting more similar as time advances, said Aaron Goldsmid, GM and Head of Product for Deel, a high-tech tool for recruiting and onboarding employees. 

His tone suggested that his assessment may be a little tongue-in-cheek. But other presenters concurred that there aren’t huge differences between most of the AI agents to date. Jon Miller said he believes ChatGPT might produce better prose, and that it’s not the right system to use for scouring social media. Others are better for deep research projects, he suggested.

Here again, the experts said, the best insights will come from practical use.

Can I trust the data or reports that AI generates?

Absolutely not, the speakers agreed. 

Miller used an AI-generated picture to make a point about the technology’s inability to capture emotional nuance. The shot depicted a bare foot planted on what appeared to an idyllic tropical beach, though there was little “warmth” to a picture. Miller noted as an aside that the foot had more than five toes.
In AI lingo, those departures from reality are known as hallucinations, and can be extreme, the presenters stressed.

The inaccuracies can be particularly acute in researching menu trends, said Megan Lynberg, VP of Sales for the researcher Datassential. 
She cited the example of cottage cheese being flagged by AI awhile back as an option rapidly appearing on more fine-dining menus. The implication was that more establishments should ride the boom.

But a deeper probe by Datassential’s human team revealed that AI wasn’t living up to the intelligence portion of its name.  For one thing, she said, it hadn’t factored in social media, a gauge of consumer affinity, in concluding the public was craving more cottage cheese options.

“The indication is not pointing there,” she said of the menu  recommendation. “It does not make sense.”

What AI advances are next for the FAFH business?

Presenters and attendees indicated that the “humanization” of AI is part of what was termed by Miller as the technology’s “jagged frontier.”
Several participants cited the need to imbue a brand’s personality in any customer or public communication generated by AI. Their comments suggested the tech can’t yet come across as human; as many attested, you can still spot the differences between a computer and a human craftsman’s output. 

There were also considerable mentions of advanced bundling and product crossovers. DoorDash's Simeon Duong noted how his third-party platform is looking for synergies between its restaurant-meal and grocery delivery operations. He cited the example of asking a customer who just ordered wings from a restaurant if they needed more paper towels or napkins from the local supermarket. 

Duong aired the additional example of suggesting to someone who orders frozen entrees from a supermarket to try other highly spiced cuisines, or Indian restaurants in their area.

Any way I can catch up with the Go2MarketEdge presentations?

Highlights of the three-day event will be aired beginning this week in a virtual takeoff on the conference. The online Go2MarketEdge presentation is broken down into two hour-long installments aired on the Tuesdays and Thursdays of the next two weeks. In addition to touching on what was shared during the in-person event in San Francisco, the virtual presentations will cover additional aspects of FAFH technology that weren’t addressed at the live event in San Francisco. By design, it offers fresh information for attendees of the face-to-face conference as well as those who couldn’t make it.
More information on the virtual version of Go2MarketEdge is available here.

Go2MarketEdge is presented by IFMA The Food Away from Home Association in partnership with the tech companies Tastewise and Cut+Dry. 

More coverage can be found here. 

More basic information about AI and its implications for the FAFH business can be found here. 

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