Inside SOCIAL’s smart shift: How Impresario is using AI to cut complexity, not corners

When running a hospitality business as diverse and varied as Impresario—the parent company of such beloved brands as SOCIAL—the opportunity for clarity and decisiveness in choices provides both a luxury and a necessity.

The company's Chief Technology Officer, Hardik Shah, views Generative AI not as chasing fads or replacing intuition. He sees it as a way of reducing operational noise, promoting insights sooner, and allowing leadership to concentrate on being present in proper places.

“We utilize GenAI for the ultimate complexities, not for avoiding them,” says Shah, as he discusses how AI and automation are quietly shaping emerging categories of everything from customer-feedback loops to co-working spaces inside SOCIAL.

Excerpts from an interview:

Hardik Shah on enhancing context, not replacing judgment

At Impresario, how are you exploring or applying Generative AI in strategic decision-making—especially in areas like customer experience, menu innovation, or operations?

We’re approaching GenAI with a clear sense of where it can complement our decision-making—not replace it. For a business like ours, which spans multiple brands, cities, and consumer cohorts, the value of GenAI lies in helping us process complexity with greater speed and clarity. Whether it’s distilling trends from internal reports, summarizing feedback loops, or supporting scenario planning, it can be a helpful tool in navigating the scale and pace at which we operate.

That said, in the F&B space, especially at Impresario where culture, community, and creativity drive much of what we do, human judgment remains irreplaceable. Menu innovation, for instance, isn’t just a data-led exercise—it’s rooted in understanding regional palates, emerging subcultures, and emotional connections that can’t be algorithmically derived. Similarly, delivering great hospitality is about anticipating needs and responding with empathy—qualities that GenAI simply doesn’t possess. So, while we’re exploring its use in internal workflows and strategic inputs, our focus remains firmly on human-led thinking.

What role do you think GenAI can play in enhancing agility and data-driven decisions at the CTO level?

GenAI has the potential to change how we engage with information. We spend time collecting and formatting data—manually pulling reports, cleaning sheets, and layering in context before we could even begin to draw insights. That’s changing.

GenAI allows us to move from data collection to data conversation. Instead of asking someone to compile numbers across formats or systems, we’re moving toward asking the system itself: “What’s changed this week?”

In that sense, it can enhance agility by freeing up bandwidth for more strategic thinking. But agility isn't just about moving fast—it's about moving right. And that still requires human oversight, domain expertise, and contextual awareness, especially in a business as nuanced as hospitality.

We can look at GenAI as an enabler that can help structure and surface information more efficiently—whether it’s assisting with internal dashboards, summarizing customer feedback, or exploring operational patterns. But it’s critical to remember that AI can only work with what’s been—whereas good leadership often depends on knowing what’s next. That foresight comes from lived experience, intuition, and conversations with teams and customers. So, it may support our thinking, but it doesn’t shape it.

Can you share an example where AI-driven insights led to a significant shift in business or technology strategy at Impresario?

A clear example is how we reimagined the SOCIAL Works program—our initiative that transforms SOCIAL outlets into co-working spaces during the day.

Earlier, the process was entirely manual. Customers would pay a small fee for workspace access, and our team had to track those payments, apply credits manually when they placed orders, and handle the backend reconciliation later. It worked, but it was slow and prone to friction.

We reimagined that flow using a combination of automation and smart systems. Now, customers can make payments through a WhatsApp bot, instantly receive Wi-Fi credentials, and have their credits automatically linked to their accounts. When they place an order via our digital menu, the system applies the credits seamlessly—no manual steps needed.

While this isn’t ‘AI’ in the generative sense, it reflects the kind of AI-lite, automation-driven thinking that helps us improve both operations and the guest journey. It’s a good example of how we use tech not to overhaul our identity, but to subtly elevate the experience.

Given your diverse background—from AR at Snap to tech ops at Cameraah—how do you align GenAI capabilities with real-world restaurant business goals?

My experience across tech-driven companies taught me to approach new technologies through the lens of utility, not novelty. Whether it's augmented reality or GenAI, the question I always ask is: how does this solve a real business problem? In the restaurant space, that means ensuring any technology we use supports operational flow, enhances customer experience, or helps us scale with consistency.

GenAI has its strengths—it can help us summarize feedback or assist in knowledge management. But we don’t adopt tech for the sake of headlines. The restaurant business is intensely tactile, emotional, and human-led. So, while I stay curious about what GenAI can do, I stay grounded in whether it actually moves the needle for the guest, the team, or the brand.

Do you see CTOs needing to become more tech-savvy to truly benefit from AI, or should GenAI tools adapt to their existing workflows?

It’s a bit of both. CTOs definitely need to stay tech-curious and build a foundational understanding of how GenAI works—not just what it can do, but how it fits into their ecosystem. That doesn’t mean becoming an AI researcher, but it does mean being able to separate signal from noise, and spotting where these tools might actually solve a problem versus just add complexity

At the same time, GenAI needs to meet leaders where they are. The best implementations won’t demand workflow changes—they’ll integrate seamlessly into existing platforms, whether that’s business intelligence tools, communication apps, or internal decision-support systems.

For me, the goal is always to make technology invisible: if it’s working well, it’s seamless, not disruptive. That’s what makes it truly valuable in a business as operationally rich and people-driven as ours

If you had to build a GenAI tool specifically for CxOs in F&B, what would it do?

If I were to design a GenAI tool specifically for CXOs in the F&B space, it wouldn’t be about decision-making—it would be about decision-readiness. The tool would act like a smart briefing layer: surfacing key operational signals across outlets, flagging unusual patterns in sales or inventory, consolidating team feedback, and mapping consumer sentiment in real-time. Essentially, it would help leaders cut through the noise and focus on what truly needs their attention.

In this industry, no dashboard can replace walking the floor or tasting the food—but a tool like this could ensure that CxOs walk in with sharper context. It would blend structured data with anecdotal inputs, helping translate operational complexity into clear, timely insights. That’s where GenAI can really shine—not by driving the strategy, but by enabling leaders to engage with it faster and more effectively

From your perspective, what mindset shift do Indian CxOs need to adopt to fully unlock the value of GenAI?

The real shift isn’t about becoming pro-AI—it’s about becoming more outcome-oriented in how we think about technology. GenAI will deliver value only when it's applied with clarity, not curiosity alone. Indian CxOs need to move away from the ‘let’s try this because it’s trending’ mindset and toward asking: What friction are we solving? What complexity are we simplifying? That’s where GenAI can earn its place in the stack.

Another important shift is accepting that not all intelligence is machine-compatible. Especially in sectors like F&B, where emotional intelligence, sensory experience, and cultural context matter, leaders need to balance tech intuition with human judgment. GenAI can help us move faster and see wider—but it’s still up to us to decide what to act on, and how.