ATLANTA — For Atlanta-based pizza company Papa Johns, artificial intelligence is officially on the menu.
The company announced Thursday that they’d partnered with Google Cloud to “revolutionize the pizza maker’s ordering and delivery experience” in a multi-year expanded partnership.
The new partnership means a new team at Papa Johns that they’re calling PJX, that they say will “leverage Google Cloud’s AI, data analytics and machine learning (ML) capabilities to provide a more frictionless and consistent experience for customers both inside its restaurants and throughout its digital channels.”
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“At Papa Johns, our aspiration is to be the best pizza makers in the business. Being the best means we are crafting great pizza and providing every single customer a superior experience along every part of their journey – from ordering, to delivery, to our loyalty program,” said Todd Penegor, President and CEO, Papa Johns.
Penegor said the Google Cloud partnership would help them “take personalization to the next level” and move beyond “just reacting to orders.”
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Papa Johns said in the announcement that they hope the partnership leads to more orders, more often, higher-value orders, reduced customer service costs and more customer satisfaction.
“PJX will bring together teams from Papa Johns and Google Cloud to elevate the experience of Papa Johns customers at nearly every touchpoint – from the moment they first crave pizza and engage with Papa Johns, all the way to enjoying the first bite of their pizza order,” Kevin Vasconi, Chief Digital and Technology Officer, Papa Johns, said. “By building on our heritage as a tech pioneer in the pizza industry, we are embracing what has always made Papa Johns so well-loved – our commitment to Better.”
PJX will use Google Cloud’s AI to improve customer support and build better experiences “from click to crust” by working on the following projects:
- Anticipation of customer needs: Using Google BigQuery, Vertex AI, and Gemini, Papa Johns will proactively suggest orders through push notifications or email, based on learned customer preferences and anticipated needs for upcoming occasions like birthdays or sporting events.
- Hyper-personalized loyalty experiences: By applying Google’s generative AI (gen AI) models against its data, Papa Johns can help optimize loyalty program rewards and benefits. In addition, the pizza maker will be equipped with real-time personalization that dynamically adjusts the website and app experience for users, such as presenting unique discount codes or advertisements based on previous orders, customer preferences, location, and more.
- Predictive ordering and personalized marketing: Using Google Cloud’s AI, Papa Johns will be able to predict customer ordering patterns to provide relevant promotions and ordering shortcuts. This also includes AI-driven marketing campaigns that can deliver personalized offers, content, and timing based on preferences.
- AI-powered customer interactions: Papa Johns plans to build an AI-powered chatbot that can handle common customer inquiries, seamlessly escalating complex issues to live agents. The pizza maker will also incorporate AI-powered voice ordering via the app to further enhance convenience.
- Optimized restaurant operations: Papa Johns will transition to a Google Cloud-based point-of-sale (POS) system that lays the foundation for AI-driven dispatching, route optimization, and intelligent automation of key restaurant processes.
“Throughout its history, Papa Johns has been at the forefront of technology innovation – and its innovation team understands that AI has the power to transform the customer experience into something truly special,” Matt Renner, President, Global Revenue, Google Cloud, said in a statement.
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