Startup Orderly pitches AI ordering tool to restaurants to cut labor costs

By Almira Louise S. Martinez, Reporter

ORDERLY, an artificial intelligence (AI) voice-ordering system, is helping restaurants streamline order-taking by replacing traditional counter transactions with automated voice agents, a shift the startup says can cut labor costs and lift sales.

The system lets customers place orders by speaking to an AI agent, reducing the need for staff to manually take orders.

Orderly AI co-founder and Chief Executive Officer Math Z. Heramia said the idea grew from his family’s experience running restaurants in the Philippines and the difficulties of managing workers.

“We wanted to use AI to build a solution within restaurants and to solve ordering, which was like the biggest pain point,” Mr. Heramia told BusinessWorld in a Zoom interview.

Mr. Heramia, 21, is a Filipino-American based in the US and comes from a family of restaurateurs who, he said, faced recurring staffing issues.

“What we saw in the Philippine market is they’re facing the same thing as the US and the rest of the world, having to deal with labor,” he said.

Waiters in the Philippines earn an average base salary of P15,956 a month, according to job platform Indeed. Orderly estimates that mid-sized restaurants using its system can save more than P380,000 a year in labor costs while increasing average order value by as much as 38%.

“Instead of having five wait staff, you could maybe half that or replace two,” Mr. Heramia said. He added that the AI could also suggest add-ons and upgrades during ordering.

“We’re able to understand what the consumer wants at a very high level and down to the details,” he said.

Customers access the system by scanning a quick response code and choosing between a digital menu, chat interface or AI voice agent. Orders are sent directly into a restaurant’s point-of-sale system (POS), reducing error rates and preparation time.

“If you already have a POS system, we can integrate and run as a layer on top of what you have,” Mr. Heramia said, adding that setup requires little effort from restaurant owners.

The voice agent supports Filipino and English, with plans to expand coverage as the company gathers linguistic data.

“We would have to capture more speech data and train models to interact with customers across dialects,” Mr. Heramia said.

While automation reduces demand for frontline staff, Mr. Heramia said the lower operating cost could help displaced workers start businesses of their own. “Those people who may have lost that job could open their own restaurant now because it becomes much cheaper,” he said.

About 12.7 million jobs in the Philippines are exposed to generative AI, though only 3.6% face a high risk of displacement, according to data from the International Labour Organization.

Orderly aims to work with 500 local businesses and expand to 2,500 restaurants worldwide by year-end.