Brinker’s CIO spent years rebuilding restaurant tech. Now, the Chili’s operator is ready to explore more AI

When Chris Caldwell, the chief information officer at Brinker International, is asked about his artificial intelligence strategy, he first gently guides the conversation to a less glamorous, but crucial IT topic: reliable Wi-Fi. “Before we jump into AI use cases, we have to make sure a lot of the core technology is working well,” says Caldwell. “You can’t do AI without a solid network infrastructure in all your restaurants.” In February 2024, Caldwell joined the Chili’s and Maggiano’s restaurant operator after serving as CIO for nine years at rival chain KFC, reuniting with Brinker CEO Kevin Hochman, also a veteran of KFC’s parent company, Yum! Brands. Hochman told Caldwell that when he initially joined Brinker in June 2022, he quickly discovered that up to 70% of restaurant employee feedback centered on technological challenges that made work harder. One of the biggest issues was that Wi-Fi outages were far too common. Caldwell began by exploring a variety of network infrastructure vendors, but ended up sticking with the incumbent, Comcast. Together, they installed new networking gear, replaced every Wi-Fi access point at 1,200 restaurants, added a cellular backup system to prevent outages, and in some locations, tore up parking lots to install fiber connections. “Over the last two years, we would basically just rip the guts out of every bit of the network infrastructure, and now we’re in a stable spot,” says Caldwell. Then, he shifted his attention to complaints from managers that their back-office computers were too slow. Caldwell thought he would need to convince the C-suite to invest in new hardware, so he showed the leadership team a video of the painstakingly slow workflow processes that were hampering restaurant teams. “All right, how fast can we go,” Caldwell recalls of the response he received. “It wasn’t a funding question.” Each location got a new laptop. Other fixes included deploying 23,000 new iPads with longer battery life and revamping 9,000 t