Three-year tech contracts used to be the norm in hospitality. You picked a supplier, grew with them, and reviewed the relationship once a decade. According to Chris, Group Head of IT at Karali Group (the owner of Côte, The Real Greek, Crosstown and the UK Marugame franchise), that model is finished.

"Rare is the contract we sign that's beyond one year at the moment," he told host Chris Fletcher on the latest episode of the Stacked hospitality tech podcast. "There's just too much unknown to lock into a three-year deal."

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Chris has spent more than 30 years in hospitality, from busing tables and running restaurants in Canada and Australia to area management at Côte, before moving into IT over six years ago. He now looks after the tech stack for a multi-brand restaurant group with more than 100 restaurants. Here are the lessons from the conversation that every operator, and every hospitality tech supplier, should take note of.

1. Why one-year tech contracts are the new normal

The reason is speed. Ten or twenty years ago, hospitality systems were stable. You could plan three years ahead and know which platform you would need when you grew. Today, Chris says, "in one year, who knows what options will even exist that might solve problems better."

Suppliers still push hard for longer terms, often with a tempting discount attached. Karali Group says no. Shorter contracts keep the group able to switch when something better (or cheaper) arrives, and with margins squeezed by energy costs and wider economic pressure, that flexibility is worth more than a multi-year discount.

The takeaway for operators: if you are about to sign a three-year deal for anything outside your core POS, workforce or inventory platforms, ask whether you really need to. Our guide on when to change your hospitality tech (and when to stick) covers how to weigh the cost of switching against the cost of staying.

Not sure how locked in your current stack is? A free Stacked Tech Check scores your setup and shows you where you're tied in, where you're overpaying and where you have room to move.

2. Build vs buy: should restaurant groups build their own tech with AI?

With tools like Claude making it possible to build software in weeks rather than years, a lot of larger groups are tempted to bring tech in-house again. Karali Group has explored it. They've scoped projects and taken some as far as a minimum viable product, but haven't moved anything in-house yet.

The blocker isn't building it. It's maintaining it. "What does the support look like 24/7?" Chris asks. "What if something goes wrong? What if we want to make a change? We're just not a team of devs."

His view on where this lands is pragmatic. Operators will want to build, but they'll run into problems, especially with anything guest-facing. The better bet is the wave of new, lean, AI-native suppliers that can deliver the same thing at a fraction of the cost: "No, they're not a big team, but I'd rather three of them responsible for that 24/7 than one of me."

Those new providers are already "greatly undercutting" established players, he says. The group is hesitant to be the first to pilot an unproven tool, but show them a couple of good reference sites and a product that works in their ecosystem at half the price, and that's a serious opportunity. For more on where AI fits in a restaurant business, read The Operator's Guide to AI in Hospitality.

3. The website change that saved almost 100 developer hours a week

One of the biggest recent wins at Karali Group came from rethinking web development. Two changes made the difference:

• Moving e-commerce to Shopify. The gift and retail side no longer needs developers to maintain it. An agency is on call for a couple of hours a week in case anything breaks.

• Adding a no-code layer over the main brand websites. Marketers can now make temporary changes themselves by describing what they want, for example a Valentine's banner that only shows on Fridays and Saturdays to London visitors.

The result: almost 100 hours a week of third-party developer time removed. But for Chris, the bigger win is speed. "We want to put something up today for tomorrow." Nobody should have to fill in a form, wait for the agency's next sprint and miss the window, just to change £9.99 to £12.99.

4. Four brands, four POS systems: is switching worth it?

Karali Group runs four different POS providers across its brands. In an ideal world, they would be on one. So why not consolidate?

"Is it worth dropping a couple hundred k in hardware to change them? No. At least not at the moment," says Chris. AI can bridge some of the reporting gaps between systems, and the friction isn't high enough yet to justify the cost and disruption. The question he asks daily is simple: is there enough friction to make a change? When integrations start failing and systems "won't talk to the people we want it to talk to", the case builds. Until then, they stay.

It's a useful test for any multi-site operator weighing a POS migration. If you're at that stage, our breakdown of POS systems for UK hospitality is a good starting point, or book a free Tech Check and we'll help you work out whether the friction is real.

5. Integrations: the "house-buying chain" of hospitality tech

Chris is close to signing a new platform, but it has taken months of lining up other partners first, because the new system only works if existing suppliers build the integrations. And they need those integrations done before the contract is signed.

Fletcher compared it to a house-buying chain, and Chris agreed. It needs faith on all sides: suppliers don't want to invest in building something that may never be used. Scale helps. "Most are very amenable" when a 100-site group comes calling, but it's a real challenge for smaller operators. "Will we do the investment for eight sites? Maybe not."

The takeaway for smaller groups: check integration support before you shortlist, not after. Mapping how your systems connect is one of the first things a Stacked Tech Check looks at.

6. Voice AI in restaurants: how "AI Joe" answers the phones

The project Chris is proudest of is the group's voice AI call-answering system, live for around 18 months and known internally as "AI Joe". Working with guest manager Leslie, the team fed it every likely guest question, from directions to booking changes.

The impact was measurable: more reservations taken and hours of phone time removed from restaurant teams. Early results were so strong they tried to roll it out faster than the supplier could scale. That left half the estate live and half not for a while, which turned into an accidental A/B test showing a clear difference between the two.

Brand concerns were "heavy" at the start, as this was the group's first guest-facing AI. The answer was putting in a lot of time early to make sure Joe sounded right for the brand. Would he build it in-house today? "Maybe not today. Next year, with the way speed's going, that's the question."

7. AI-driven phishing is a daily threat

AI isn't only helping operators. Chris says the group sees security threats "daily", and they are far more convincing than they used to be. Some attackers want quick money through vouchers or urgent payment requests. Others want to hold the business to ransom.

The red flag to train teams on is urgency. Requests that push you to act now are the ones to slow down on. It's a point Fletcher also picked up from Dojo's security team in a previous conversation.

8. Listen to the floor: the best tech ideas come from GMs

"The boardroom never kicks out a tech product. It's the people on the floor," says Fletcher. Chris agrees and spends time in restaurants every week. One GM has built his own setup, using a voice-to-text tool on his laptop to dictate and analyse his admin. It's further than the group is ready to roll out, but it shows exactly where demand is heading.

The opportunity is to spot those early adopters and make them champions, while still bringing less tech-confident managers along at a slower pace. Voice ordering is a good example of where this is heading. Tools like Peckish already let teams reorder stock just by saying what they need.

9. How Karali Group manages tech suppliers

For suppliers wondering how to work with a group like Karali, Chris was clear:

• Key suppliers meet weekly. Even if the call only lasts five minutes. That's non-negotiable.

• Lower-touch suppliers meet monthly. His payments provider, for example, where there is little to cover.

• Urgent means today. If the group needs a senior meeting the same day, suppliers need to make it happen.

• Be direct. He sets out the numbers and expectations from the first meeting.

10. How to pitch a head of IT (and what gets ignored)

Chris is open to approaches on LinkedIn, but most pitches fall flat: "We'll do what you've got now, about the same, but with three extra features you won't actually care about." Ten extra features won't make him switch.

What does work? The group just changed its guest Wi-Fi provider. The pitch started almost a year ago with one line: we do what you've got now, at about half the price.

"If you can really do the same thing at about half the price, let's talk."

And before signing, he checks with other operators who use the product, or as Fletcher put it, goes and checks their score on Stacked. You can see how we rate vendors on our How We Score page and browse scored partners in the Stacked marketplace.

Key takeaways for hospitality operators

• Keep non-core tech contracts to 12 months where you can. The market is moving too fast to lock in.

• Be careful about building your own tech with AI. Maintenance and 24/7 support are the hidden costs.

• Lean, AI-native suppliers can cut costs in half. Ask for references, then pilot.

• Only switch core systems like POS when the friction outweighs the cost.

• Check integrations before you sign, especially if you're a smaller group.

• Voice AI for call answering can deliver measurable gains in bookings and staff time.

• Train teams to treat urgency as a red flag for phishing.

Is your tech stack helping or holding you back? Book a free Stacked Tech Check. We'll read your setup, score it, and show you exactly where you're overpaying, where you're locked in and where your systems aren't talking to each other. It's free for operators, with no sales pitch unless you ask for one.