Collins Foods, the Brisbane-headquartered operator of 296 KFC restaurants across Australia, has started trialling AI systems to squeeze better margins out of its two biggest cost lines: labour and food. Managing director Xavier Simonet told the company’s full-year results that it’s working with KFC’s global franchisor Yum! Brands to “optimise labour and food” through South Pacific AI trials, as reported by iTnews.

Why should a Brisbane pub, cafe or club care what a fried chicken giant does? Because Collins runs its national operation from this city, and when the biggest QSR operator in town commits to AI-driven rostering and inventory, that capability doesn’t stay in franchise land for long. The same features are already trickling into the mid-market rostering and stock platforms independent venues use. And labour and food are exactly the two costs squeezing Queensland independents right now. Here’s the part the vendors won’t tell you, though: in most venues we support, the blocker isn’t the AI — it’s the data plumbing. POS, rostering and ordering typically run as three disconnected islands, and no AI tool can optimise numbers it can’t see.

So before you buy anything with “AI” on the label, do the unglamorous bit first. Get your POS, rostering and inventory data connected and clean. Ask any vendor where their AI actually processes your data — staff and guest information still falls under the Privacy Act, wherever the model runs. Then start with one measurable problem, like food waste or penalty-rate creep, rather than a platform-wide rollout.

Our hospitality IT team works with venues across Brisbane and the Gold Coast on exactly this groundwork.