Restaurant operators have spent 25 years adding technology one problem at a time, and most of them say it has paid off. New research from the National Restaurant Association, based on a survey of 212 operators, finds the harder job now is getting those tools, their data and the staff who use them to work as one system.
The Association published Research Insight: The Future of Restaurant Technology on November 5, 2026. It combines a survey of 212 restaurant operators run from June 18 to July 18, 2026, interviews with eight restaurant leaders across quick-service and full-service segments, and data from the Association’s 2026 State of the Restaurant Industry report. The presenting sponsor is DoorDash and the supporting sponsor is PayPal, both vendors in the categories the paper discusses.
What the survey found
According to the Association, 82% of operators say technology has benefited their business. Looking ahead, 77.9% expect technology, automation, data and AI to be at least moderately critical to their business over the next five years. Training and education top the list of support operators say would help them adopt these tools, at 56.5%.
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The obstacles are practical. Operators named cost (48.8%), business fit and value (43.8%), workforce and expertise gaps (41.3%) and integration challenges (38.8%) as the main barriers to adopting or expanding technology. Integration sits fourth on that list, but it is the barrier the Association’s own framing puts at the centre: the research argues that the next stage of restaurant technology will be defined by how well an operation connects the intelligence its tools produce.
AI use is wide and shallow
The AI figures show how early the market is. The Association reports that 38.6% of operators use AI tools. Asked about their attitude, 42.4% describe themselves as cautious and 26.2% as excited. Only 3.2% are implementing AI projects companywide, while 20% are running small-scale pilots. The top AI concerns are complexity (46.1%), cost (43.5%) and customer acceptance (41.9%).
Dr. Chad Moutray, the Association’s Chief Economist, tied AI to data quality in the release: “AI only raises the importance of that readiness, because it can only be as good as the information behind it.” The leaders interviewed for the paper made a related point, according to the Association. They described ambitious AI initiatives that outpace the quality of the data available to them, and said organizational factors, rather than technological constraints, are the biggest barriers to getting value from technology.
Jobs and hospitality
On labor, 47.6% of operators expect technology, automation, data and AI to improve labor productivity, and 37.2% expect employee roles to shift toward greater technology skills. Nearly two-thirds, 65%, say technology has a positive impact on the hospitality their restaurants provide.
Michelle Korsmo, the Association’s President and CEO, described the shift this way: “Restaurant technology is shifting from tools operators use to intelligence that helps run the business.” The interviewed leaders gave two examples of connected systems at work. Some said they generate product-level demand forecasts at the store level, and others use AI to answer questions in leadership meetings that once took days of analysis.
What it means for operators
Multi-unit chains and franchisors. A chain that runs ordering, payments, scheduling and inventory from separate vendors holds the data in separate places. The survey puts integration challenges at 38.8% of respondents, and the interview findings place the weight on data quality and process. For a chain technology lead, the practical first step is an inventory of which systems share data today and which still depend on exports. We covered one vendor-side version of this in DoorDash’s DashOS, which connects restaurant ordering, loyalty and reservations, and the Association’s presenting sponsor for this paper is the same company.
Operators with labor tools in the stack. With 37.2% expecting employee roles to shift toward technology skills and training and education the top support request at 56.5%, rollout budgets need a training line next to the software line. Scheduling and labor products such as Toast’s IQ Team labor management tools only deliver on the forecast-and-staff promise when the people using them are trained and the sales data feeding them is clean.
Operators weighing owned channels. Cost is the top barrier at 48.8%, and business fit and value follows at 43.8%. A product pitch that promises savings has to clear both. Commission-free ordering products, like the commission-free Olo App for restaurant chains, are one example of a purchase where the fit-and-value question comes first.
What to watch for in the numbers
The survey sample is 212 operators, and the Association’s release does not break the results out by segment, chain size or region. The 3.2% companywide AI figure and the 20% pilot figure are the two numbers to compare against your own operation.
The interview group is small as well: eight leaders. Their comments describe what is possible when systems are connected. The release does not say how many of the 212 surveyed operators have reached that point.
An actionable close for buyers
The research gives restaurant technology buyers three items to settle before the next vendor meeting: which current systems can pass data to each other without a manual export, who on staff owns data quality for the sales, labor and inventory feeds, and what training the vendor includes and what it costs on top.
The Association’s findings support asking all three before signing. With cost, fit and integration each named by roughly four in ten operators as a barrier, and AI use concentrated in pilots, the buyers who see value from the next round of purchases are likely to be the ones who settled those questions first. The full paper is available from the National Restaurant Association.
