INRTU Startup Studio Launches AI Hostess Project for Restaurants

The INRTU startup studio, in collaboration with university students, is launching a project to develop an AI-powered hostess for restaurants. This intelligent system features a virtual assistant designed to handle incoming calls, answer FAQs and bookings. Unlike standard chat bots, this tool will generate personalized offers to drive repeat customer visits.

As the project’s initiator and investor, the Startup Studio provides development funding, shapes the business model, manages the project, attracts potential customers and oversees commercialization.

According to Irina Samokhvalova, Startup Studio’s Project Manager, the technology is especially relevant for the restaurant business. Catering employees do not always have time to answer calls during peak hours, some requests are lost, and work with clients is not carried out systematically. According to the idea of INRTU students, the AI hostess will reduce some staff overload and elevate the overall guest experience.

“We have partnered with a development team that has taken a 25% stake in the company. The team brings proven experience in launching commercial AI products and bringing them to the market: one of the previously developed projects successfully acquired over 100 clients.

The project is currently at the stage of creating and implementing a test version. The core technical infrastructure is fully developed, including integrated telephony, speech recognition, voice synthesis and LLM, along with request-processing logic. A database, a software interface and CRM integrations to fully automate customer service have also been developed," said Irina Samokhvalova.

The AI hostess is now being piloted in a partner restaurant to test the solution on real customer requests. Moving forward, the Startup Studio plans to scale the product to other venues and major restaurant chains.