Dunkin’ Taps HubKonnect’s AI as QSRs Get Hyper-Specific With Marketing

As restaurants compete to take advantage of new digital capabilities as quickly and effectively as possible, Dunkin’ is leveraging artificial intelligence (AI) to optimize stores’ performance on a unit-to-unit basis.

On Tuesday (June 6), marketing technology company HubKonnect, which leverages local data to improve stores’ performance based on factors specific to each location, announced a partnership with the quick-service restaurant (QSR) company. In an interview with PYMNTS, Michael Koch, the technology company’s co-founder and CEO, spoke to the demand for these kinds of local insights.  

“Let’s say one Dunkin’ is on a university, and the age demographics are 18 to 22,” Koch said. “Our technology then recognizes that and offers more data-driven digital solutions, as opposed to, say, a location in Florida in an older retirement community, where there may be more [paper] handouts. … Based off of our data, we know there’s a technical threshold within age groups, different comfortability, so why would you have mobile offers with an older demographic that’s not going to download the app?”

While this may be a fairly broad example, the technology can provide insights about the specific needs of any given location that are far more granular. For instance, consumers’ ordering behaviors can be affected by other demographic considerations, by how far they are from their store, by how they are getting to the location and more.

Raising the Bar

Dunkin’s move to leverage HubKonnect’s technology, which is also used by other major QSR brands including McDonald’s, Chick-fil-A and Bojangles, comes as the competitive landscape for marketing evolves to demand this kind of specificity.

“With the way the retail industry is looking, national advertising used to be the craze, regional advertising, but what we’ve found is, the trend is really at the unit, to be able to have that level of specificity in that data,” Koch said.

Certainly, restaurants are looking to get smarter, adapting new technologies to stay ahead of the pack. According to data cited in “Inflation Makes Technology Table Stakes for Restaurants,” the March edition of the “Money Mobility Tracker®,” a PYMNTS and Ingo Money collaboration, three-quarters of restaurants plan to adopt new technology throughout this year.

Moreover, the majority of consumers are looking for these kinds of tech upgrades. Additional research highlighted in the Tracker® reveals that 70% of restaurant customers want technologies such as personalized menus incorporated into the drive-thru.

Plus, a PYMNTS survey of nearly 2,000 U.S. consumers found that 16% of consumers now primarily order food via restaurants’ direct ordering channels such as their websites or apps, and 8% mainly order food via third-party aggregators.

“We see a lot of these trends — drive-thru is going up, mobile app usage is going up,” Koch said. “These are kind of the areas where you see the evolution, the modernization of the QSR space.”

Indeed, restaurants are increasingly turning to AI and machine learning to automate the entire experience. For instance, this month, Wendy’s is launching its test of Google Cloud’s AI technology at the drive-thru, powering conversational commerce that leverages the technology company’s large language models (LLMs).

Baby, It’s Cold Outside

Indeed, AI can offer QSRs insight into how many different factors affect consumers’ habits — not only the makeup of the population in a given area, but also the external factors affecting their behaviors from day to day.

For instance, when it is cold out, Koch noted, the mix of a combined Dunkin’ and Baskin Robbins location may be shifted towards Dunkin’, but when the weather heats up, more consumers opt for ice cream. Or for example, at a location near an NFL stadium, customers may be very different on a game day than on other days, demanding different marketing tactics based on what events are scheduled.

“If there’s going to be a heat wave, what if there’s a special or a digital offer that can be sent to, ‘Buy this, get this?’” Koch said. “So, it’s really being reactive.”

End to End

Given the demand among restaurant operators for simpleunified solutions, HubKonnect has noted that, to be maximally useful, the company needs to not only provide the data insights but also to apply those findings to the marketing assets themselves, among other implementations.

“We’re not just a technology company,” Koch said, adding that the company also has a role in the marketing process. 

He explained that the company’s studio develops assets and communicates with franchisees as well as working with vendors, ensuring that restaurants have the “proper partners, the proper turnaround, the proper process.”

Looking ahead to the future of the industry, Koch predicts that this kind of location-to-location specificity will soon become table stakes, as marketing will become increasingly granular.

“The future of … QSR is at the unit,” Koch said. “So, looking at each location as individual ecosystem to drive those [pricing and marketing] decisions. That’s what our platform does, and we’ve become, for Dunkin’ and our other clients, the first place for local store marketing.” 

Flying Cars Can Wait: CES Shows Future Is Robots That Cool Your Soup, Pick Up Socks

AI Me gadget from CES 2025

What do the movies “Blade Runner,” “2001: A Space Odyssey,” “Back to the Future Part II” and Spike Jonze’s “Her” all have in common?

These science fiction movies, each depicting various versions of a future full of fantastic technologies, all take place in the year 2025 or earlier.

Though some of the high-tech gadgets and futuristic innovations seen in these films, such as hoverboards and flying cars, haven’t quite materialized in everyday life, they have sparked imagination and set the stage for the very real innovations. As the dozens of groundbreaking products and wacky gadgets that debuted at the 2025 Consumer Electronics Show (CES) this week reveal, the future is certainly now.

CES, after all, rarely disappoints when it comes to providing a first-look at some truly strange gadgets that might just represent the ultimate showcase of tomorrow’s technology.

From artificial intelligence (AI) being embedded into everything and smarter than ever home devices, to autonomous robotic companions and wearable tech that both bends and blends reality, many of the inventions that once seemed out of reach in Hollywood films are now being unveiled on the convention floor.

See also: The Five Not-So-Obvious Things That Will Change the Digital Economy in 2025

Could Smart Home Robots Revolutionize Daily Life?

It’s becoming clear that today’s technological advancements are increasingly bridging the gap between what was once imagined and what’s now becoming real.

For example, smart home robots are no longer a futuristic fantasy — they are being positioned as potentially indispensable components of modern households.

CES 2025 saw the debut of the Roborock Saros Z70, a robot vacuum with a telescopic, five-axis arm. Rosey the Robot from “The Jetsons” has nothing on this little gadget, which its maker describes as “a mechanical arm that sees and thinks,” and is able to pick up and put away items like socks, shoes, tissues and more.

For more serious household tasks, the SwitchBot Multitasking Household Robot K20+ Pro was also unveiled at CES 2025. “Whether it’s delivering objects, vacuuming, monitoring pets, purifying the air, providing home security, or even mobilizing smart tablets, the K20+ Pro juggles household management with ease … from delivering food and drinks to carrying small packages,” said a company release.

Read more: Training Robots Using Video Games Could Democratize Warehouse Automation

The K20+ Pro’s core is designed for customization and flexibility, serving as a modular foundation that allows users to create, adapt, and personalize the robot for a wide variety of innovative applications, and can connect with third-party smart devices like Alexa, Google Assistant and Siri, ensuring integration into any smart home ecosystem.

Elsewhere, TCL premiered its “AI Me” (Amy) concept companion robot, complete with animated eyes, autonomous movement and an AI-powered camera on its head; while Dreame showcased its X50 Ultra robot vacuum that has legs to avoid obstacles.

As smart home technology continues to evolve, the integration of robots designed to assist in daily activities could significantly alter how we interact with our homes, manage tasks and even shape the future of work.

TomBot, for example, debuted an emotional robotic lap dog, Jennie, an AI robot therapy dog designed to keep seniors company. On the more playful side of things, Tokyo robotics startup Yukai Engineering introduced the Nékojita FuFu, a portable cat-shaped robot that can blow air to cool hot food or drinks.

It wasn’t solely robotics for use at home being showcased at CES. John Deere used the Las Vegas event to reveal its own autonomous agricultural products. The fully autonomous machines were on display from Jan. 7 to 10, and were a bit bigger in size, if equivalently less cute, than the TomBot puppies.

Read more: Google Reportedly Bringing Gemini AI to TV Sets

The Future Is Calling and Consumers Can Answer Anywhere

Behind the strangely futuristic convenience of a robot picking up your laundry and taking out the trash while it vacuums and interfaces with the rest of your household appliances lies a much larger story: the rise of the smart economy.

As CES 2025 showed, augmented reality (AR) glasses are the eye candy of the smart economy. A host of futuristic specs were unveiled, capable of a range of tasks that turn the wearer into a high-tech superhero.

Halliday showcased “the world’s first proactive AI glasses with invisible display,” while freshly debuted Loomos.AI glasses offer a ChatGPT-4o integrated AI assistant.

But other appendages remain up for grabs, and innovative products from smart rings to apps like WowMouse, which allows smartwatch wearers to control devices using just their gestures and fingers, are vying for market share in ways that aim to make daily life more convenient, efficient and secure.