Innovation

🍜 At Pecking House, Manhattan, Chef Eric Huang offers the Irish-Chinese Spice Bag, made with fries, chicken nuggets, onions, peppers, and a peppercorn spice blend for $14. The combo gained popularity on TikTok and is considered for permanent addition to the menu. Pecking House, opened in Brooklyn in September 2022 and a Manhattan location in 2024, serves a southern fried chicken and Chinese takeout fusion. The restaurant also offers fried chicken with various sauces starting from $9, vegetarian options, and globally influenced sandwiches at $14 each.

🏨 STAAH partners with Praveg Hotels & Resorts, focusing on eight properties in Daman & Diu and Ahmedabad. Praveg, a BSE-listed company since 2018 with a hospitality portfolio, uses STAAH's MAX Channel Manager, SwiftBook, and other solutions for operational efficiency and revenue growth. Shoaib Ali, STAAH's National Sales Head, anticipates Praveg's expansion, while Dr. Zalak Patel credits STAAH for increased bookings and revenues. STAAH recently joined Access Management Group, enhancing their global business management software presence.

🦾 Jack Smyth, Jellyfish's AI Chief Solutions Officer, anticipates an internet built for AI agents, impacting marketing strategies. AI-driven tools like OpenAI’s Operator and Instacart’s retail agents are reshaping the shopping journey, streamlining consumer choices based on preferences. AI models from internet giants will curate brand perceptions by processing online data, while marketers must understand their brand's position in AI's latent space—a conceptual mapping affecting AI-driven recommendations. Differentiation remains crucial but harder to maintain with AI's copyable tactics.

💻 OpenAI's AI agent "Operator" was made available to UK users last month, joining other AI agents like Anthropic's Claude and offerings from Perplexity and Google. These agents perform tasks in a web browser with some degree of autonomy. Operator, still in "research preview," recently made an error by spending $31 on a dozen eggs. OpenAI describes Operator as a research preview and requires a ChatGPT Pro account at $200 a month. AI agents are expected to reshape workflows and the internet, with OpenAI CEO Sam Altman predicting they could join the workforce this year. GitHub CEO Thomas Dohmke discusses increasing autonomy in AI agents and their potential, such as GitHub's Project Padawan. Concerns about AI agents' autonomy include potential risks, urging the need for guardrails in technology. AI agents' proliferation could lead to internet restructuring and the redesign of interfaces with AI agents in mind.

💻 Health New Zealand used a single Excel spreadsheet to track $28 billion of public funds, as reported by an article citing an independent Deloitte report. The outdated technology reliance was called a ‘major issue’. In 2020, nearly 16,000 COVID cases went unreported in England due to an old Excel file format limiting data rows, leading to incomplete data over eight days. The European Spreadsheet Risks Interest Group estimates that 90% of spreadsheets contain errors, leading to various costly mistakes worldwide, such as an input error costing a state fund in Ireland €750,000.

📡 Church’s Texas Chicken encountered frequent connectivity downtimes, affecting customer service and daily operations. SVP & CIO Ahnaf Ali highlighted the absence of backup systems and the need for digital platform integration, including POS, mobile app, and digital signage. The brand aimed to improve customer engagement with dynamic digital signage, in-store Wi-Fi, and AI-driven enhancements, necessitating a scalable technology solution.

💾 During a 2025 MURTEC University session, Felicia White and Jason Lechner discussed how 83% of organizations use Learning Management Systems (LMS), with mobile learning boosting productivity by 80%. Pizza Ranch, with 220 locations, uses LMS for consistent training and saw a 5.9-month increase in employee retention for top users. Gamified learning increases retention rates 10-fold, leading to a 41% decrease in turnover at Pizza Ranch, surpassing industry benchmarks by 51%. VR training can improve retention by 75%, while a 3% drop in turnover correlates with a 3% decrease in labor costs, and top-performing locations see a 10% higher operating income.

🚀 Real estate is evolving from traditional leases to membership models, generating $450 million in annual membership fees for venues like Soho House. This model offers predictable cash flow with members staying years instead of months, higher customer value as members spend more than one-time guests, and a unique market position out of reach for institutional capital. Emerging niches include branded home communities, adventure sports locations, marinas, and eco-friendly hubs. This shift from owning space to selling access is redefining the industry.

📌 Ronnie Fieg, founder of Kith, faced community backlash in Manhattan for trying to push through a paddle project despite known opposition to racket sports and similar rejections in the past. Alex Wilcox, founder of JSX, is creating an alternative to legacy airlines and pricy private jets by targeting the middle segment. Train travel is resurging due to environmental concerns, convenience in Europe such as Paris to Amsterdam being faster by train, and the appeal of scenic journeys with 70% of Millennials and Gen Z favoring enjoyable journeys. The Not an Hotel brand in Japan offers a hybrid model where members buy into a property portfolio, enabling access to various luxurious properties like Tokyo penthouses and beach villas in Okinawa, reflecting changing attitudes towards property ownership among young professionals who may rent primary residences while investing in vacation homes.

🏨 Mews, a hospitality management platform, raised $75 million on March 4 to modernize the industry's outdated processes. Founder Richard Valtr envisions shifting from room-centric to guest-centric services, leveraging artificial intelligence for personalized guest experiences. AI technology allows digital check-ins and room access via mobile keys while freeing hotel staff for better service delivery. The digital transformation aims to increase ancillary revenue and adapt to new remote work trends, redefining hotels as multifunctional spaces.