Hypergiant Aims to Be Artificial Intelligence Concierge to Fortune 500

Move over, Sam Malone: Flanagan, the AI mixologist is here to serve up cocktails. Artificial intelligence-solutions company Hypergiant helped develop a new AI bartender/mixologist program for TGI Friday's called Flanagan (named for Tom Cruise's character in the 1988 film Cocktail). Flanagan, which interacts with both TGI Friday's smartphone app and its loyalty accounts, makes drink recommendations based on a customer's food choices or preferences. It can also create an off-menu personalized cocktail based on a flavor profile, a customer's mood or their previous eating and drinking habits. According to Ben Lamm, the CEO of Hypergiant, Flanagan is particularly noteworthy in that it offers an AI solution for two of TGI Friday's core business problems: how to get more people inside the restaurant, and how to learn more about them.