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Editor’s Note: This article is part 4 of PMQ’s 2026 Pizza Power Report. You can scroll down to the bottom to navigate to the next section of the report.
By Rick Hynum and Charlie Pogacar
Nipun Sharma, CEO of Appetronix, looked on, mouth agape. A woman, phone wedged between her shoulder and ear and pushing her suitcase, approached a fully-autonomous Donatos Pizza location—built by Appetronix—and casually nabbed her hot pizza out of a food locker. There was no outward astonishment; she didn’t pause to admire the robot that had just prepared her food. “It was like she’d been doing it her entire life,” Sharma says. “To us, that was the ultimate validation.”
For years, it felt like the pizza industry had been promised a robotic revolution that remained in limbo. There were demos, prototypes and plenty of headlines about the “future of automation,” but the average pizzeria looked the same as ever: a few humans, a few ovens and a rush that still depended on who showed up that day.
In 2025, the robots finally arrived—to some extent. The robotic Donatos location, stationed in the Columbus, Ohio, airport, was perhaps the marquee example, but other ripples beneath the surface began to emerge—ones that may someday have major implications for independent pizzerias confronting skyrocketing labor costs.
In addition to making pies, robots are also growing adept at taking phone orders, thanks to AI. Donatos has invested in this area, too, having tested a voice-ordering system that handled over 300,000 phone calls in just five months this year with reported 99.9% accuracy, freeing thousands of labor hours for in-store hospitality.
Independent operators are seeing similar wins employing AI agents. Ray Villaman of Tahoe Restaurant Group, owner of Base Camp Pizza Co. in South Lake Tahoe, California, says a pilot test of VoicePlug AI captured 25% to 30% more calls and boosted large-party bookings by the same margin. In Ohio, Kyle Rosch of Brenz Pizza Co. started piloting an AI assistant named Scarlett, created by Palona AI, to cut customer wait times and relieve staff stress. Both Rosch and Villaman emphasize that it’s not about replacing workers—it’s about helping them focus on guests.
And as the technology matures, adoption is accelerating. Detroit-style chain Via 313 recently rolled out AI ordering across all of its 20-plus stores, reporting that it’s like “having a super-reliable team member on every shift.” Whether it’s answering calls, recommending add-ons or booking catering, voice AI has quietly become one of the most visible—and, potentially, viable—forms of automation in the pizza segment.
There are other technologies entering the pizza space that, like voice ordering AI, are meant to supplement human labor rather than replace it. That’s true for Robb Swanson, a franchisee for a Zorbaz On the Lake location in Park Rapids, Minnesota. He installed xRobotics’ xPizza Cube—a countertop machine that portions sauce, cheese and toppings with precision. It’s small enough to fit behind a bar but powerful enough to produce pizzas faster and more efficiently during the shop’s busy summer season.
Swanson didn’t buy it to cut staff. He bought it to keep up. “It did exactly what I hoped it would,” he says. “It saves labor, it saves cheese, it makes us more consistent.” The bot paid for itself in under 18 months, and he’s now trying to convince other Zorbaz On the Lake franchisees to follow suit.
Contrast that with Sharma’s vision for Donatos, and you begin to see how tech might affect pizza chains versus independent pizzerias. In Sharma’s mind, partial solutions, as he calls them, aren’t enough. “You still need someone to cut and box a pizza in those setups,” he says. “So, at the end of the day, how much money are you really saving? There’s been no widespread adoption of these technologies by big national chains because they have run the numbers and the numbers don’t work.”
The result is a widening delta between independents and chains: Small operators are adopting incremental, assistive tech, while big brands are exploring full autonomy. Both are responding to the same pressures—labor, speed and margin—but in very different ways.So, yes, the robots are here. But the story of pizza technology in the 2020s isn’t just about machines that can make a pie without human supervision. It’s about people—operators who are learning to think like technologists, to build smarter systems, and to make sure that even as the industry automates, the heart of pizza stays human.
Click here to read part 5 of PMQ’s 2026 Pizza Power Report: Gas Station Pizza Doesn’t Suck Anymore, and That’s Worrisome
