RTN Workgroups

Workgroups are hyper-focused, technical collaborations where technology suppliers work together to develop tangible outcomes such as data standards, frameworks, and best practices. Restaurants provide strategic guidance while tech suppliers deliver expertise.

Participation is flexible — join anytime and contribute as much or as little as you like. Leading or contributing to a workgroup provides visibility as a thought leader in the industry, often leading to speaking opportunities at events like MURTEC.

Frequency: Twice per month
Length: 1 hour

Beyond the Lens:

Transforming Video Data into Actionable Operational Intelligence

Take a Seat at the Table: The Computer Vision Revolution

The Vibe: No Slides. Just Real Talk.

The Vision

For years, cameras in restaurants have functioned as passive systems, capturing footage for security and compliance. That model is changing.

With the advancement of Computer Vision and Physical AI, video is becoming a structured, interoperable data source that can feed directly into the broader restaurant technology ecosystem.

This shift transforms cameras from isolated hardware into a core component of the operational data layer, powering real-time insights across labor, throughput, guest experience, and food safety.

What We’ll Cover

In this "No-Slides, Just Solutions" Town Hall, we dive into how Computer Vision is revolutionizing the three pillars of restaurant operations:

The Drive-Thru: Using camera data to predict bottleneck triggers, identify vehicle makes/models for personalized loyalty, and shave seconds off Total Experience (TX) times.
Front of House (FOH): Real-time monitoring of table turns, queue lengths, and "Physical AI" deployments that ensure guests are greeted and serviced without friction.
Back of House (BOH): Automating line-check accuracy, monitoring protein waste, and ensuring safety protocols are met without constant manual oversight.

The "Table" Discussion

We aren't just talking about the "art of the possible"; we’re discussing the "art of the practical."

We will explore how to "slow the conversation to speed implementation," ensuring your tech stack is relevant to your specific operational needs.

Join us to learn how to stop just watching your footage and start using it to drive revenue and labor efficiency.

Restaurant Technology Network (RTN) is thrilled to invite you to the official launch of our newest RTN Workgroup: Data Standardization & Governance 2.0, featuring a dedicated AI Governance Cohort.

You can't build anything great on a bad foundation.

Every AI initiative, every analytics project, every digital transformation effort your brand is planning right now — it all runs on data. And if that data is messy, inconsistent, or ungoverned, none of it will perform the way you need it to.

Data standardization and governance is not glamorous. It does not make headlines the way a new AI feature does. But it is the building block for everything else — and the longer you wait to address it, the more expensive and painful it becomes.

This workgroup is for operators who are ready to stop treating data governance as an IT problem and start treating it as a business strategy. We will tackle the hard questions: How do you build a governance framework that scales? How do you move fast with AI without creating risk? How do you get the CEO and board aligned without letting quick-win thinking derail long-term progress?

Don't chase perfection on the way to good. You have to start somewhere — and this is the place to start.

Join us. Let's lay the foundation the entire industry can build on.

Restaurant Technology Network (RTN) is thrilled to invite you to the official launch of our newest RTN Workgroup: AI Workforce & Compliance (AIWC)

Your AI scheduling tool might be making decisions you can't legally defend.

Agentic AI is here. It is already being used to schedule shifts, optimize labor, and make workforce decisions at scale across the restaurant industry. And most organizations have no idea whether those models are discriminating — or how they would prove it if challenged.

This is not a hypothetical risk. It is a cost, legal, and compliance exposure that grows every day these models run without governance frameworks around them. The question is not whether AI will reshape restaurant workforce management. It already is. The question is: how do we manage these models responsibly?

This workgroup brings together the people who need to answer that question: HR leaders who understand employment law and workforce equity, Legal teams who understand the liability landscape, Technology teams who build and deploy these systems, and AI governance experts who can help the industry build the right guardrails. Together, we will define the standards and practices that let the industry benefit from agentic AI without the legal and ethical landmines.

Because the cost of getting this wrong — in lawsuits, in fines, in reputational damage, in harm to workers — is far greater than the cost of getting it right.

Call for Speakers!