Mitchells & Butlers has integrated artificial intelligence into its operations to improve efficiency in menu development, marketing and customer service, according to director of digital product and transformation Richard Whitehouse. The move follows a period of strong trading across its mid-market brands and forms part of a wider digital transformation strategy.
Speaking at MCA’s inaugural Innovation Conference last week, Whitehouse said AI is already influencing how the company designs and manages its menus.
“We’ve integrated AI into our menu design process,” he said. “Our marketers often scratch their heads over what to call certain dishes or how to orchestrate the menu. We’ve managed to integrate AI so it can provide suggestions to the team doing the manual tasks, helping them move faster.”
The system is connected through middleware to OpenAI, allowing for controlled automation. “We’ve set some rules which allow the team to get faster suggestions back,” Whitehouse explained.
“We’ve also looked at using it in the customer arena. When our general managers are now responsible for complaints, we can give them a suggested response - not removing the human element altogether, but helping them along the way.”
Whitehouse said AI has delivered measurable time savings. “The common theme between both areas is that the time it takes to do tasks is a bit faster on the back of that.”
Cross-functional approach
Rather than assign ownership to a single department, M&B has created an internal AI Working Group with representation from across the business. “It’s such a fast topic, and every system we use today or in the future will have some type of AI module built in,” Whitehouse said.
“We’ve brought together tech, finance, marketing and operations to agree on priorities and how we exploit what is a huge opportunity.”
The company’s first focus has been AI literacy. “We’ve rolled out a training programme, which has been optional so far but will quickly become mandatory for certain departments,” he said. “It’s about helping colleagues understand what these tools are and how they might help.”
He added that data quality and governance have been central to the strategy. “If you put bad data in, you get a very bad output,” Whitehouse said. “So while the sexy stuff is idea generation, we’ve made data discipline a real focus for the future.”
The initiative builds on M&B’s wider focus on efficiency and sustainability, with ongoing investment in energy reduction and waste management across its estate.
Customer AI tools
M&B has also been testing a customer-facing AI system across its Vintage Inns brand. “We’ve said, let’s just put something on the website to see if customers will interact with it,” Whitehouse explained. “To our surprise, the uptake has been high, and customers have asked some very interesting questions.”
He said the experiment supports growing evidence that consumers are open to engaging with brands in new ways. “It supports our thinking that there’s a trend towards customers wanting to book or order with us differently. The data from that test is informing whether we take it more seriously.”
M&B prioritises AI projects using a “value vs. effort” approach, balancing short-term wins with strategic investment. “If something can deliver quick payback, we’ll get it off the ground quickly,” Whitehouse said.
“But if it’s more strategic, we’ll take a longer-term view. The key is to be ready to scale fast when something starts to work.”
