Over the past year, I collaborated with the general manager of the largest and most popular Asian restaurant in San Francisco to create Culinary IQ (CIQ), an AI-powered restaurant intelligence platform. CIQ helps general managers, regional leaders, and ownership groups make faster, better-informed operating decisions.

Restaurant operators typically manage information across disconnected point-of-sale, labor, reservation, event, weather, and other external systems. While these platforms produce substantial data, managers often lack a unified view of current conditions, the reasons behind performance changes, and the actions required to respond effectively.

CIQ addresses this challenge by transforming operational data into practical analytics, forecasts, management alerts, and recommended actions. Its enterprise architecture supports individual restaurants, multi-unit operators, franchise organizations, and large restaurant groups.

The platform was developed with OpenAI’s latest agent software development technologies, Codex and ChatGPT, together with our customized Specifications-Driven Development protocol. This approach eliminated months of development time and costs while supporting a structured, efficient product build process.

We look forward to working with future customers, investors and valuable partners in our effort to commercialize CIQ and help SMEs build the new generation of AI-Assisted applications.

A message from Bruce Lustigson, CEO/CTO Aiviola LLC