Chipotle’s new AI recruiter aims to reduce hiring time by 75%

Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc. is rolling out an artificial intelligence assistant that the chain hopes will cut the time it takes to hire workers by up to 75%.

The virtual recruiter, called Ava Cado, will be available at the chain’s more than 3,500 restaurants in North America and Europe by the end of the month, the company announced Tuesday. Fall is Chipotle’s second-largest recruiting period of the year, behind the March-May sales sprint known as “burrito season.”

The company said Ava will collect applicants’ information, answer their questions about the company, arrange meetings and send offers to human-selected candidates. The goal is to eliminate these administrative tasks from managers’ to-do lists so they can focus on running the restaurants.

The system “works as if we had hired additional administrative support for all of our restaurants,” Ilene Eskenazi, Chipotle’s chief human resources officer, said, according to the statement.

The AI ​​assistant is based on technology company Paradox’s conversational AI and can speak in English, Spanish, French and German. This is Chipotle’s latest move toward automation after testing robots that speed up the process of mashing avocados and assembling the burrito bowl.